Municipalities (Turkish: belediyeler) are the basic units of local government in Turkey. According to the Turkish Statistical Institute the population of Turkey was 76,667,864 as of 31 December 2013.[1] The majority of the population live in settlements with municipalities. The number of municipalities in Turkey was 2,947 in 2009. But in 2013, most of the small town (Turkish: belde) municipalities were merged to district (Turkish: ilçe) municipalities by the Act 6360[2] which came into effect at the 2014 local elections sharply decreased the number of municipalities to 1,394.
51 provinces continued as before the reform.
See main article: Metropolitan municipalities in Turkey. The 2013 law made all provinces with a population in excess of 750,000 (of which there were 30) into consolidated province-municipalities, known as "metropolitan municipalities" (Turkish: büyükşehir).[2]
A province center (Turkish: il merkezi) municipality is the capital of its province. All province centers also serve as capitals (district centers) for the district in which they are located. Metropolitan municipalities do not have province centers.
A district (Turkish: ilçe) municipality serves as the capital of its district; these exist in both the provinces and metropolitan municipalities. In metropolitan municipalities, all other towns and villages were merged into the district capital, so each district has only one municipality.
Districts in regular provinces still have towns (Turkish: [[belde]]) aside from the district capital.
, the number of municipalities in Turkey is 1,391.[3]
| Type | Number | Notes | Example | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Metropolitan municipality | 30 | in metropolitan municipality | Istanbul | |
| Province capital | 51 | in other provinces | Sivas | |
| District municipality | 519 | in metropolitan municipality | Tarsus | |
| District municipality | 403 | in other provinces | Gelibolu | |
| Town Municipality | 388 | in other provinces | Yazıkonak |