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Turkey-Society





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Turkey Index

Population: (1994) Turkish government figure 61.2 million, growing at 2.1 percent a year.

Languages and Ethnic Groups: Turkish, official language, spoken by most citizens; mother tongue of about 82 percent. Kurdish spoken by roughly 17 percent of population. Arabic and Caucasian languages spoken by small minority groups. Turks constitute at least 80 percent of population; Kurds form at least 10 percent. Other minorities include Arabs, people from Caucasus countries, Dönme, Greeks, and Jews.

Religion: About 99 percent nominally Muslim, of whom about 66 percent Sunni Muslims, and about 33 percent Alevi (Shia) Muslims. Constitution proclaims Turkey secular nation.

Education: Steadily increasing enrollments in tuition-free schools, universities, and numerous technical institutes. Attendance compulsory at five-year primary schools and three-year middle schools. Middle and high schools offer academic, technical, and vocational education. Twenty-seven public universities form core of higher education system. In 1990 literacy above 81 percent for people over fifteen years of age.

Health: Inadequate sewer systems in some urban areas and poor water supplies in many villages pose continuing health threats, but major infectious diseases under control. Life expectancy (1992): males, sixty-eight years; females, seventy-two years; infant mortality fifty-five per 1,000 births.

Data as of January 1995











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