Abstract
Administrative Geography of Balıkesir Province and Determination of Rural/Urban Population
With Law No. 6360, enacted in 2012, Balıkesir was given the status of a metropolitan municipality. Within the scope of this law, the legal entities of villages and towns were abolished in metropolitan municipal provinces, and the population of all settlements was accepted as an urban population, regardless of its rural/urban distinction. The aim of this study is to determine the current situation of Balıkesir province on the basis of its administrative geography and the real rural/urban population of Balıkesir province. A scanning model method was used in the research. Population data used in the study, Turkey Statistical Institute (TSI), was obtained from the Address-based Population Registration System. In addition to Google Maps and Google Earth application images, the urban and rural areas of the districts in Balıkesir province within the administrative borders and the neighborhoods in these areas were determined. As a result of these studies, it was determined that there are 1,129 neighborhoods in Balıkesir province in total. 921 of them are rural, and 208 of them are urban. While a total of 899,952 people reside in 208 urban neighborhoods within the administrative boundaries of Balıkesir province, the total number of residents in 921 rural neighborhoods is 328,668. At the end of the study, Law No. 6360 was questioned through the examples of Akçay and Altınoluk settlements, and suggestions for revising the law were presented.
Keywords
Province with metropolitan municipality, Administrative Geography, Metropol district, Rural populati
