The number of people migrating between provinces in Turkey reached nearly 3.5 million in 2023, significantly higher than the previous year, according to data from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat).

A total of 3,450,953 people migrated between provinces in Turkey in 2023, with the country’s business hub of İstanbul receiving and sending the highest number of internal migrants last year, according to TurkStat, which released its “Internal Migration Statistics, 2023” this week.

In 2022, the number of internal migrants was 2.7 million, according to TurkStat data.

Official data showed that of the nearly 3.5 million people who migrated between provinces in Turkey last year, 47.9 percent were men and 52.1 percent were women.

İstanbul both received and sent the most internal migration in 2023, with 581,000 people leaving the city and 412,000 people arriving, resulting in a net migration of 168,000 people.

Ankara, Turkey’s capital, was second on the list with 208,000 people leaving the city and 233,000 people arriving in 2023.

Turkey’s northeastern Ardahan province received the least internal migration, with 6,856 people last year. The city also sent the smallest migration with 6,811 people.

The net migration numbers for some of the cities affected by two powerful earthquakes that struck Turkey last year were as follows: Kahramanmaraş (50,000 people), Hatay (127,000), Gaziantep (8,000), Adıyaman (25,000) and Malatya (68,000 people).

The magnitude 7.8 and 7.5 earthquakes, which struck 11 provinces in Turkey’s south and southeast on February 6, 2023, left more than 53,000 people dead and hundreds of thousands injured or displaced while causing massive devastation.

The 20-24 age group had the largest internal migrant population last year, with 647,191 people. “Reasons related to a member of the household” was the most common reason for the migration, followed by “better housing and living conditions” and “education.”