The number of people living alone in Türkiye has increased by 65 percent in the last 10 years

According to the Turkish Statistics Institute (TUIK), the number of “households”, which refers to communities living at the same address, regardless of whether they have family ties or not, reached 26 million 977 thousand 795 last year.

While the number of single-person households in Turkey is constantly increasing, the number of people living alone reached 3 million 316 thousand 894 in 2016 and 3 million 491 thousand 148 in 2017. The number of single-person households was 3 million 730 thousand 505 in 2018 and 4 million 62 thousand 576 in 2019.

The increase in people living alone reached remarkable proportions in 2020 and 2021, when the COVID-19 epidemic broke out. In 2020, when the COVID-19 epidemic broke out, this number increased by 342 thousand 421 to 4 million 404 thousand 997. In the last 10 years, the number of single-person households increased the most in 2021 as the impact of the epidemic continued. In the year in question, the number of single-person households increased by 376,603 to 4 million,781,600 compared to 2020.

The number of people living alone reached 5 million 67 thousand 331, an increase of 285 thousand 731 in 2022, and 5 million 192 thousand 825, an increase of 125 thousand 494 in 2023. This number increased by 128 thousand 715 to 5 million 321 thousand 540 in 2024. Last year, the number of people living alone increased by 201 thousand 781 to 5 million 523 thousand 321. Thus, in the last 10 years (period 2016-2025) the number of people living alone has increased by 66.5 percent.

Lonely people live in big cities

On the other hand, 981,000 614 of those who lived alone last year lived in Istanbul, 400,000 484 in Ankara, 375,000 380 in Izmir, 206,000 905 in Antalya and 192,000 914 in Bursa.

Bursa was followed by Adana with 126,624, Mersin with 124,682, Konya with 123,952, Balıkesir with 123,471 and Kocaeli with 112,599.

While the number of single-person households in 10 metropolitan areas was 2 million, 768 thousand, 625, this number was estimated to be more than half of the people living alone in the country.

The provinces with the lowest number of people living alone were Bayburt with 6,000 128, Ardahan with 7,000 157 and Hakkari with 8,000 274.