Turkey's population gets older, Minister says

Turkish State Minister Cevdet Yilmaz said on Monday that Turkey's population got older in 2009 compared to 2008.

Speaking to reporters about the census results announced by Turkey's statistics body, TUIK, on Monday, Yilmaz said that Turkey's population, which had reached 72.56 million as of the end of 2009, constituted 1.1 percent of the world population.

With such figures, Turkey was ranked the 17th among 237 countries, Yilmaz said.

Pointing to the average age of the population which was 28.5 in 2008, Yilmaz said such figure rose to 28.8 in 2009 and added, "This means our population got 3 months older in 2009 compared to the previous year".

Yilmaz said that the average age of the world population was 28.4.

He also said the expected life span was 67 years in the world while such figure was 74 years in Turkey.

According to TUIK, Turkey's population rose to 72,561,312 in 2009, marking a 1.45 percent change from 2008.

The increase in Turkey's population has been 1,044,212 with population of 67 provinces rising and 14 provinces declining, TUIK said.

/World Bulletin/