THE flood of new Turkish residents into Didim over the last year saw the population spike to a new high of 79,464 people.

While much has been made of the decreasing foreign expat population in the town in recent years, Didim still accounted for the highest rise across the whole of the Aydin County.

The population of Didim rose from 77,164 in 2016 to 79,466 in 2017 – a near 3 percent rise.

There are now 40,695 men and 38,769 women in Didim. There are 6,124 people in the 35- to 39-year-old age group – 3,196 men and 2,928 women.

Interestingly, there has been a staggering 88 percent rise in the population of Didim, which also includes Akbuk and outlying villages, in the last 10 years. There were only 42,266 people living in the resort in 2007.

Aydin County saw a population rise of 29.37 percent in 2017 compared to the previous year. Didim, once again, recorded the highest rise year-on-year.

The population of Aydin County is now just over 1.8 million.

Turkey’s population has shot through 80 million to reach its highest level ever, the country’s statistical authority said.

At the end of 2017, the country’s population was 80.8 million, with an annual growth rate of 1.24 percent, said the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat).

Official data showed that the population residing in Turkey rose nearly one million, up from the previous year’s figure of 79.8 million.

Turkey’s male population was 40.5 million (50.2 percent of the total), while its female population was 40.3 million (49.8 percent).

Last year, Istanbul was Turkey’s most populous city with 15 million people, fully 18.6 percent of the total population.

The country’s top tourist draw was followed by the capital Ankara with nearly 5.5 million people and the Aegean province of Izmir with around 4.3 million.