By Muhammed Ali Gurtas</p> <p>ANKARA (AA) – Turkey's population hit 82 million to reach its highest level ever as of end of 2018, the country's statistical authority said on Friday. </p> <p>Official figures revealed that the population residing in Turkey increased by 1,193,357 people year-on-year.</p> <p>"Male population was 41,139,980 people and female population was 40,863,902 people.</p> <p>"While 50.2 percent of the total population were males, 49.8 percent of the total population were females," TurkStat said.</p> <p>Fresh data also showed that annual population growth rate increased to 1.47 percent in 2018 from 1.24 in 2017.

