The Ascend of Konya Continues

Istanbul, which shoulders many burdens such as work life, industrialization, infrastructure, transportation, and population density, plays an important role in Turkey's development and continues to be the most competitive city in Turkey. Meanwhile, Konya has increased its strength in this field.

The Inter-Provincial Competitiveness Index, prepared for the fourth time by Istanbul University (IU) Center for Urban Policies Application and Research, using data from the 2021-2022 period, has been announced.

According to calculations made using a main index and 15 sub-indices (demographics, infrastructure, transportation, health, education, social life, macroeconomy, foreign trade-industry, financial markets, tourism, agriculture, innovation, entrepreneurship, higher education, technological infrastructure), with a total of 245 indicators, Istanbul became Turkey's most competitive province with a score of 74.05 on the index.

Ankara followed Istanbul with a score of 46.1, and Izmir came in third with a score of 42.8. It was observed that the top three most competitive cities in Turkey maintained their rankings in this study, as in other reports.

The other cities that made it to the top 10 in the competitiveness rankings were Antalya, Bursa, Kocaeli, Eskişehir, Konya, Muğla, and Adana. Adana climbed from 11th place to 10th, Bursa moved from 6th to 5th, and Konya rose from 10th to 8th. Eskişehir and Muğla maintained their positions, while Kocaeli slipped from 4th to 6th place.

In Turkey, agricultural production can be carried out on a total of 234,456,793 decares of agricultural land. Konya stands out as the province with the largest agricultural land, with a calculated size of 18,587,000 decares. Additionally, Konya, which was ranked 10th in the previous competitiveness rankings, rose from 10th to 8th place. Ordu had the highest number of farmers with 127,380, followed by Konya with 88,612 farmers.