Turkey's population at the end of 1994 was around at 61.2 million. This number described an 8.4 % increase over the 56.5 million enumerated in the twelfth quinquennial census, conducted in October 1990. The State Institute of Statistics has around that since 1990 the nation's population has been growing at an average annual rate of 2.1 %, a decrease from the 2.5 % average annual rate recorded during the 1980s. Turkey's population in 1985 was about 50.7 million, and in 1980 about 44.7 million. In the fourteen years from 1980 to 1994, the population increased nearly 37 %.

Turkey’s population is 66,493,970 (2001 estimate). The average population density is 85 persons per sq km.Some 74 % of the people lived in urban areas in 1999, compared with about 21 % in 1950.Linguistic data show that some nine-tenths of the population claim Turkish as their mother tongue; most of the remainder speak Kurdish and a small minority Arabic as their first language.Kurds—comprising an around one-fifth of the population—are present in remarkable numbers throughout eastern Anatolia and form a majority in a number of provinces, including Agri, Bitlis, Diyarbakir, Hakkâri, Mardin, Mus, Siirt, Urfa, and Van. Arabic speakers are mainly in Hatay—where they constitute more than one-third of the population—and in Adana, Mardin, Siirt, and Urfa. There are a further six ethnic groups with sizable numbers: Greeks, Armenians, and Jews are found almost entirely in Istanbul, and Circassians, Georgians, and Laz are generally located in the far east.