Abstract:

One of our border provinces, Ardahan, has been a settlement that draws attention due to the migration patterns it shows both before and during the republic period. Ardahan province that had been experiencing continuous population growth since the first census until 1975 has sustained rapid decrease of population following that period due to movement of migration. The decrease of population has continued even though Ardahan’s official status has been changed from district to province in 1992, whereas it has been the 3rd province having the least population according to the data of 2018. Rapid movements of migration have influenced the socio-cultural characteristics along with the numerical values of population, whereas they particularly caused the young population average to remain under that of the country and the rate of elderly population to increase. The distribution of population of Ardahan does not exhibit significant difference throughout the province due to its natural environmental conditions, however, the locations closer to water sources and to transportation means draw attention as being the locations with slightly denser population. The settlement that can be considered as a single city settlement is Ardahan city centrum, whereas the population of central district has been found to be 22.169 according to the data of 2018. With this value, Ardahan city centrum bears the feature of being the settlement with the least central district population amongst 81 provinces.