Turkey has no states: it is a unitary republic divided into 81 provinces (il), each run by a governor (vali) appointed by the Ministry of the Interior. There are no special federal districts or territories; Ankara, the national capital, is simply one of the 81. Konya is the largest province at 40,814 km², Yalova the smallest at 850 km², and Istanbul by far the most populous, with about 15.8 million residents in the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) estimate for December 2021. Below the provinces sit 922 districts (ilçe), and 30 of the provinces are also metropolitan municipalities. For statistics and teaching, the provinces are grouped into seven geographical regions, which is how this guide walks through them.
İl, İlçe and Büyükşehir: How Turkey’s 81 Provinces Are Run
Each province is named after its capital district, so the city of Rize is the seat of Rize Province and Kayseri of Kayseri Province. Three provinces break the rule: Kocaeli is governed from İzmit, Sakarya from Adapazarı and Hatay from Antakya. Because power flows from Ankara rather than being shared with elected regional governments, a province is closer to a French département than to an American state. The governor answers to the interior ministry, while local services are handled by elected councils and mayors.
The metropolitan tier grew in stages. Istanbul, Ankara and İzmir became the first metropolitan municipalities (büyükşehir belediyeleri) in 1984, and Adana, Bursa, Gaziantep and Konya followed in 1986. A 2012 reform stretched the system to every province with more than 750,000 people, and the addition of Ordu in 2013 brought the total to 30. In these provinces the metropolitan council covers the whole provincial territory, not just the main city.
Provinces also carry a number. The two-digit code on Turkish licence plates, the province’s ISO code and the first digits of its postal codes are the same. Codes 01 (Adana) to 67 (Zonguldak) follow the alphabet; 68 to 81 are the newer provinces in order of creation, from Aksaray to Düzce.
The Marmara Provinces, from Edirne to Bursa
The seven regions were defined at Turkey’s First Geography Congress in 1941 and have no government of their own. Many provinces straddle two regions, so the lists below follow where most of each province lies, as Wikipedia’s regional articles record it.
Six provinces sit entirely in the Marmara region: Istanbul, Edirne, Kırklareli, Tekirdağ, Kocaeli and Yalova. Balıkesir, Bilecik, Bursa, Çanakkale and Sakarya lie mostly within it, giving eleven in all. This is the only region with land in Europe. Edirne, Kırklareli and Tekirdağ lie wholly in East Thrace, while Istanbul and Çanakkale span both continents.
Istanbul’s province and metropolitan city cover the same 5,315 km², and its population climbed from about 10.0 million at the October 2000 census to 15.8 million in the 2021 estimate. Bursa, which became the early Ottoman capital after its capture from the Byzantines in 1326, had about 3.15 million people in 2021, and Kocaeli, governed from İzmit, just over 2 million. Yalova, created in 1995 on the southern shore of the Sea of Marmara, covers only 850 km² but held about 291,000 people in 2021, up from roughly 169,000 in 2000.
The Aegean and Mediterranean Coasts: İzmir, Antalya and Hatay
The Aegean region has the longest coastline of Turkey’s four coastal regions. Aydın, İzmir, Manisa and Uşak lie entirely within it, and Afyonkarahisar, Denizli, Kütahya and Muğla mostly within it. İzmir is the anchor: about 4.43 million people in 2021 on 12,016 km². Manisa (1.46 million), Aydın (1.13 million), Denizli (1.05 million) and Muğla (1.02 million) each passed the million mark. Uşak, the smallest in population at about 373,000, only gained province status in 1953.
The Mediterranean region holds seven provinces entirely, Adana, Antalya, Mersin, Burdur, Hatay, Isparta and Osmaniye, plus most of Kahramanmaraş. Antalya, at 20,791 km², is the region’s largest province, with about 2.62 million people in 2021. Adana (2.26 million) and Mersin (1.89 million) belong, with Osmaniye and Hatay, to the Çukurova area. Mersin’s name has changed too. In 1933 Mersin and Silifke were merged into a province called İçel, and the province was known by that name for decades before taking Mersin’s.
Hatay, at the south-eastern corner, was the last territory to join the republic. As the Sanjak of Alexandretta under French-mandate Syria, it became the short-lived Hatay State in September 1938 and passed to Turkey in 1939, de facto on 7 July and formally on 23 July. Syria long disputed the transfer, though the issue has been largely dormant since relations thawed in the 2000s. Hatay had about 1.67 million residents in 2021. Osmaniye, which had been absorbed into Adana as Cebelibereket in 1933, was re-created in 1996 and is the region’s newest province.
Ankara, Konya and the Central Anatolian Plateau
Central Anatolia is a semi-arid plateau with low rainfall for most of the year, and it holds the capital. Aksaray, Kırıkkale, Kırşehir, Nevşehir, Niğde and Yozgat are entirely within it, and Ankara, Çankırı, Eskişehir, Karaman, Kayseri, Konya and Sivas mostly within it, thirteen provinces in all.
Ankara Province had about 5.75 million people in 2021 on 25,402 km², the third-largest area in the country. Konya, the former Seljuk capital, is the largest by area at 40,814 km², about 5% of Turkey’s 783,562 km², with roughly 2.28 million people. Sivas comes second by area at 28,567 km². Kayseri (1.43 million) and Eskişehir (898,000) are the other big urban provinces.
Much of the provincial map here dates from the late 1980s. Aksaray, Karaman and Kırıkkale all became provinces in 1989, carved out of their larger neighbours. Kırşehir lost its province status in 1953 and regained it in 1957. Some plateau provinces have shrunk sharply through migration to the cities. Yozgat counted about 683,000 people in the 2000 census and only about 419,000 in the 2021 estimate.
Samsun to Artvin: The Black Sea Provinces
The Black Sea region has more provinces than any other: fifteen lie entirely within it (Amasya, Bartın, Bolu, Düzce, Giresun, Gümüşhane, Karabük, Kastamonu, Ordu, Rize, Samsun, Sinop, Tokat, Trabzon and Zonguldak) and three mostly (Artvin, Bayburt and Çorum). Rainfall on its eastern coast averages about 2,500 mm annually, more than anywhere else in Turkey, and its provinces are long, narrow strips running from the coast up into the Pontic Mountains.
Samsun is the region’s most populous province, with about 1.37 million people in 2021, ahead of Trabzon (817,000) and Ordu (761,000). At the eastern end, in 1933 Artvin and Rize were merged into a single province named Çoruh, after the river. Rize was restored as a province in 1936, and in 1956 the remaining Çoruh province was renamed Artvin. The western end gained three new provinces in the 1990s: Bartın in 1991, Karabük in 1995 and Düzce in 1999. Düzce, separated from Bolu after a devastating earthquake in November 1999, was the 81st province and the last to be created.
Bayburt, made a province in 1989, is among the least populous in the country. The 2021 estimate gave it about 85,000 people, slightly more than Tunceli in the east. By the end of 2025, Bayburt was the smallest of all 81, at 82,836.
Van, Erzurum and Şanlıurfa: The Two Eastern Regions
Eastern Anatolia is the largest region, at 164,330 km² or about 20.9% of Turkey. It also has the highest average altitude and the widest annual temperature range, and at about 40 people per km² it is far more thinly settled than the national average of 98. Eleven provinces lie entirely within it: Ağrı, Bingöl, Bitlis, Elazığ, Hakkâri, Iğdır, Kars, Malatya, Muş, Tunceli and Van. Ardahan, Erzincan, Erzurum and Şırnak lie mostly within it. Van is the most populous, with about 1.14 million people in 2021 around Lake Van, the country’s largest lake. Erzurum, at 25,331 km², is the fourth-largest province by area, and its population fell from about 937,000 in 2000 to 757,000 in 2021.
Turkey’s highest summit, 5,137 m Mount Ararat, stands inside Ağrı Province. Tunceli was the province of Dersim until it was renamed and re-established in 1936. With about 84,000 people in 2021, it is one of the two smallest provinces by population. Ardahan and Iğdır, on the borders with Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Iran, became provinces in 1992.
Southeastern Anatolia, at 59,176 km² the second-smallest region, has very hot, dry summers and borders Syria and Iraq. Mardin and Şanlıurfa lie entirely within it. Adıyaman, Batman, Diyarbakır, Gaziantep and Siirt lie mostly within it, while Kilis is split between this region and the Mediterranean. Şanlıurfa, at 19,336 km², had about 2.14 million people in 2021, and Gaziantep about 2.13 million (up from 1.29 million in 2000). Diyarbakır had 1.79 million. Batman and Şırnak became provinces in 1990, and Kilis in 1995. At 1,428 km², Kilis is the second-smallest province by area after Yalova.
From 1923 to Düzce in 1999: How the Count Reached 81
The republic proclaimed on 29 October 1923 inherited the Ottoman vilayet map and then spent decades redrawing it. In 1925 twelve provinces, among them Ardahan, Çatalca, Gelibolu, Muş and Üsküdar, were downgraded to districts. The 1933 reform cut deeper: Aksaray, Hakkâri and Şebinkarahisar lost their status, and the İçel and Çoruh mergers reduced the total to 56. Rize, Tunceli and Hakkâri came back in 1936, and Hatay was added in 1939.
The 1950s brought Uşak (1953), Adıyaman, Nevşehir and Sakarya (1954) and the return of Kırşehir (1957), which made 67, the number still fossilised in Zonguldak’s plate code. After 32 years without change, fourteen more provinces were created between 1989 and 1999: Aksaray, Bayburt, Karaman and Kırıkkale in 1989; Batman and Şırnak in 1990; Bartın in 1991; Ardahan and Iğdır in 1992; Yalova, Karabük and Kilis in 1995; Osmaniye in 1996; and Düzce in 1999. Several of these were former districts that had once been provinces, so the 1925 and 1933 cuts were partly undone.
The count has stood at 81 since then. Each province elects members to the 600-seat Grand National Assembly, with seats shared out among the provinces by population. Today’s map came out of about 75 years of mergers, renamings and splits, not a single plan.
To see how these provinces relate to the cities inside them, compare this list with our guide to the largest cities in Turkey. The profile of Ankara explains why the capital sits on the plateau rather than on the Bosphorus, and the question of which provinces count as European is covered in whether Turkey is in Europe or Asia.