Municipalities (Turkish: belediyeler) are the basic units of local government in Turkey.
According to the Turkish Statistical Institute the population of Turkey was 76,667,864 as of 31 December 2013.
[1] The majority of the population live in settlements with municipalities.
The 2013 law made all provinces with a population in excess of 750,000 (of which there were 30) into consolidated province-municipalities, known as "metropolitan municipalities" (Turkish: büyükşehir).
A district (Turkish: ilçe) municipality serves as the capital of its district; these exist in both the provinces and metropolitan municipalities.