Metropolitan municipalities in Turkey


There are 81 provinces in Turkey. Among the 81 provinces, 30 provinces are designated metropolitan municipalities. Metropolitan municipalities are subdivided into districts, where each district includes a corresponding district municipality, which is a second tier municipality.

History

The first metropolitan municipalities were established in 1984. These were the three most populous cities in Turkey, namely; Istanbul, Ankara, and İzmir. In each metropolitan municipality a number of second level municipalities were established. In 1986, four new metropolitan municipalities were established: Adana, Bursa, Gaziantep and Konya. Two years later the total number was increased to eight with the addition of Kayseri. In 1993, seven new metropolitan municipalities were established: Antalya, Diyarbakır, Erzurum, Eskişehir, Mersin, Kocaeli and Samsun. Following the earthquake of 1999, Sakarya was also declared a metropolitan municipality.
Before 2004, only the urban centers with populations of more than 750,000 were declared metropolitan centers. However, in 2004, the concept of metropolitan municipality was redefined in Istanbul and Kocaeli, where thenceforth metropolitan municipality borders would overlap with provincial borders. In 2012, this was extended to other metropolitan municipalities. Thus, all provinces with a population in excess of 750,000 were declared metropolitan municipality and accordingly the number of metropolitan municipalities has sharply increased. The following 13 cities became metropolitan municipalities:
With the addition of Ordu in 2013, the total number of the metropolitan municipalities increased to 30.

List of metropolitan areas

Metropolitan municipalitiesDate of establishmentArea GDP Population Number of districts
Adana05.06.198613,84415.7752,263,37315
Ankara23.03.198425,63274.2855,747,32525
Antalya09.09.199320,17723.2132,619,83219
Aydın06.12.20128,1167.2601,134,03117
Balıkesir06.12.201214,58310.0271,250,61020
Bursa18.06.198610,81333.6413,147,81817
Denizli06.12.201212,1349.0621,051,05619
Diyarbakır09.09.199315,1016.9591,791,37317
Erzurum09.09.199325,0063.918756,89320
Eskişehir09.09.199313,9609.078898,36914
Gaziantep20.06.19866,83016.5452,130,4329
Hatay06.12.20125,52411.2981,670,71215
Mersin09.09.199315,01015.5621,891,14513
İstanbul23.03.19845,343245.20715,840,00039
İzmir23.03.198411,89151.4604,425,78930
Kayseri07.12.198816,97011.9561,434,35716
Kocaeli09.09.19933,39734.4422,033,44112
Konya20.06.198640,83816.6162,277,01731
Malatya06.12.201212,2594.324808,69213
Manisa06.12.201213,33913.6331,456,62617
Kahramanmaraş06.12.201214,5207.0151,171,29811
Mardin06.12.20128,7804.737862,75710
Muğla06.12.201212,6549.4441,021,14113
Ordu14.03.20135,9143.685760,87219
Sakarya06.03.20004,8249.1021,060,87616
Samsun09.09.19939,7258.3321,371,27417
Tekirdağ06.12.20126,19016.2251,113,40011
Trabzon06.12.20124,6284.897816,68618
Şanlıurfa06.12.201219,2426.4132,143,02013
Van06.12.201220,9213.5441,141,01513
Turkey