Istanbul’s Şişli named most-developed district in Turkey

Istanbul's Şişli has been named Turkey's "most developed district" in a study conducted by the Industry and Technology Ministry.

The Çankaya district in Ankara ranked second, followed by Beşiktaş and Kadıköy in Istanbul. Yenimahalle, another district in the capital, came fifth in the ranking.

The ministry's study, titled "Districts' Socioeconomic Development Survey," takes several parameters into account when ranking the locations, such as the ratio of university graduates to the district's overall population, the number of doctors per person and the number of POS machines.

The share in the industrial production, the number of passport holders and property prices also affect the district's ranking.

İzmir, the country's third-largest province by population, has no district ranked in the top 10, while one district in the northwestern industrial province of Bursa entered the list.

Istanbul, Turkey's financial and commercial center, has a total of seven districts in the top 10. Beside Şişli, Beşiktaş and Kadıköy, Istanbul's Bakırköy, Ataşehir and Başakşehir district also made it to the list.

The study identifies six levels, ranking districts from most-developed to least-developed, with the formers in "level-1."
The districts in "level-1" account for 30.2 percent, or 25.2 million people, of Turkey's entire population. Some 49 percent of the country's all bank branches are also located in those districts, and payments made with credit and debit cards in those districts made up 56 percent of all such transactions made in Turkey. They also had the highest scores in education and health services.

The Eastern Anatolia and Southeast Anatolia regions have one district each in the "level-1" category.