Transport and infrastructure in Turkey
Our listing of the primary types of transport compares the infrastructure of Turkey with the average of all countries in Asia. Overall, the main traffic and transport routes are well developed and in comparatively good condition.In terms of the length of its rail network, Turkey ranks 77th in the world with 0.12 meters per inhabitant. In total, the rail network is 10,378 kilometers long. Freight traffic on the rails most recently totaled 15.90 billion tons and kilometers traveled. Passenger traffic reached 10.68 billion passenger-kilometers in 2021.
The waterways listed refer to inland traffic on rivers and canals. The number of ports includes those located on the 7,200 km of coastline. In 2021, about 12.59 million freight containers were transported.
› Airports in Turkey
Back to overview: Turkey
Road traffic
The network of roads and highways has a total length of 67,333 km. For each of the country's 84.78 million inhabitants, this corresponds to 0.79 meters. This puts Turkey in 214th place in the global ranking. However, the country's size and population density of around 108 inhabitants per km² must also be taken into account. Countries with fewer inhabitants in the same or even larger area naturally achieve quite different values here and have to connect remote areas to the transport network despite a smaller population.With an average of 7392 traffic fatalities per year (2013 - 2019), road traffic in Turkey is considered relatively safe. This corresponds to 9.1 accident fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants per year. By comparison, this figure is 12.3 in the USA and 17.0 worldwide.
In Turkey, traffic drives on the right-hand side of the road, i.e. people drive in the right-hand lane and overtake on the left. Oncoming traffic comes toward you on the left side. Here you can also find an overview of all countries with left-hand traffic.
Turkey | |||
total | per 1 mio inhabitants | per km² | |
---|---|---|---|
Roadways | 67,300 km | 794.25 km | 85.74 m |
Railroads | 10,400 km | 122.42 km | 13.21 m |
Waterways | 1,200 km | 14.16 km | 1.53 m |
Commercial harbors | 1,217 | 14.36 | 0.002 |
Airports | 51 | 0.60 | 0.065 |
Asia | |||
total | per 1 mio inhabitants | per km² | |
---|---|---|---|
Roadways | 16,613,000 km | 3,524.24 km | 519.50 m |
Railroads | 280,000 km | 59.41 km | 8.76 m |
Waterways | 260,300 km | 55.21 km | 8.14 m |
Commercial harbors | 45,998 | 9.76 | 0.001 |
Airports | 1,012 | 0.21 | 0.000 |
Data sources used
• Global Health Observatory Data Repository (World Health Organization)• UNCTAD
• Internation Union of Railways (UIC)
• CIA Factbook
• OECD Statistics
• Wikipedia (german)