Kurds in Turkey constitute over 22 millions

 

NEWSDESK, — According to Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) which has recently published its records of Kurdish population in Turkey, the Kurds constitute 22,691,824 people in Turkey.

The most of 22,691,824 Kurds in Turkey are born in Kurdish cities in the southeast of the country. Therefore, out of Turkey’s 74.7 million citizens, more than 30 percent are Kurds. These records only include people who have been registered at official government institutions, reported Rudaw.

After the founding of the Turkish Republic, the first census was carried out in 1927, according to which the Turkish population was 13,464,564. At that time, Serhat was the most populous Kurdish city with 38,000 residents. The second most populous city was Dilok.

Official census records show that the Kurdish population in 1927 was 2,323,359. This number increased to 3,850,723 in 1950, to 5,147,680 in 1960 and to 10,505,672 in 1990.

According to TurkStat, the number of Kurds in Kurdish cities of Turkey in 2000 was 12,751,808; in 2012, this number increased to 14,733,894.

There are 8,902 Kurdish villages, 108 towns and 275 districts, according to TurkStat.

In the 2000 census, only residents of Kurdish cities were taken into account. From 1990 to 1997, under the pretext of security measures, around 4,000 Kurdish villages were evacuated and destroyed, recall Rudaw. The villagers left for other Turkish towns, and thus were not taken into account in this census.