According to the 2000 census, among the 81 provinces in the country, the three most rapidly growing are İstanbul with a population of 10 million, Ankara with 4 million and İzmir with 3.4 million. In 1990-2000, Antalya showed the greatest population grown with a 41.8‰ rise, followed by Şanlıurfa with 36.6‰ and İstanbul with 33.1‰. Tunceli, on the other hand, showed the steepest decline with a 35.6‰ drop in population. According to population estimates for the first half of 2006, 36.177 million of Turkey’s population is female and 36.797 million male.

Turkey is a country with a young population. The 0-14 age group forms 28.08%, the 15-64 age group 65.96% and the 65 and over age group less than 5.97% of the overall population. In contrast, in European Union countries the proportion of the 0-14 age group in the overall population is 17.2%, nearly half that in Turkey, and the 65 and over age group is almost threefold Turkey, with 15.7%.

The official language in Turkey is Turkish, and 90% of the population speaks Turkish. The Turkish language spoken in Turkey, a Uralo-Altaic agglutinative tongue, has changed in time along with migrations and has undergone an evolution. Turkey’s Turkish is over modern form of Ottoman Turkish, which had adopted many words from Arabic and Persian. This language, together with Azerbaijani and Turkmen Turkish, is a derivative of the Oghuz dialects known since the 11^th century.