North Cyprus’s population estimated at ‘590,000 excluding students and soldiers’

North Cyprus’s population is estimated at 590,000, excluding foreign students and Turkish soldiers, ‘prime minister’ Unal Ustel said on Tuesday night.

Speaking to Diyalog TV, he said the ruling coalition is working to create an “address-based census system” to record the TRNC’s population, with that system said to be “80 per cent complete”.

Additionally, he said, “the number of foreign students registered with the migration department is clear”, while the number of non-Turkish Cypriots registered with the TRNC’s authorities as being employed is also said to be “clear”.

“When the project is completed, we will announce the entire population to the people,” he said.

The question of how many people live in north Cyprus was a hot topic last year, with many, including ruling coalition part DP ‘MP’ Serhat Akpinar and Turkish Cypriot mukhtars’ association chairman Akay Darbaz, suggesting that as many as a million people now live in north Cyprus.

Akpinar later told the Cyprus Mail that the north “must limit and stop” its handing out of ‘citizenships’ to stem its rapid population growth.

Others produced different estimates, however, with TRNC president Ersin Tatar having said in November 2023 that the TRNC’s official population at the time was 410,000.

The TRNC’s statistics institute, meanwhile, announced in January last year that there were just 399,727 people living in north Cyprus.

Typically, the larger estimates include large numbers of foreign students at north Cyprus’s universities, with over 20 universities currently operational.

Tatar had said last year that there are students from 144 different countries studying at north Cyprus’s numerous universities, while local officials had complained that the rapid growth in population numbers had left local authorities with inadequate funds to provide services to residents.

Meanwhile, multiple reports in recent years have suggested that the number of Turkish soldiers stationed in north Cyprus is in the region of 40,000.