The north’s statistics institute on Tuesday announced the population there stood at 489,308, despite mobile communications data suggesting the figure is more than double that.

The institute released what it described as a “projection” of the north’s population as of the end of 2024, with the last comprehensive census having been carried out in 2011.

However, mobile communications data paints a very different picture, with the north’s telecommunications authority having announced in December that as of the end of September there were 1,133,583 mobile subscribers in the north, of which 945,810 were active.

The telecommunications authority stated that this corresponds to a mobile penetration rate of 276 per cent – a figure which would, if true, leave the north with the second-highest mobile penetration rate on earth. This figure falls to 232 per cent based on the projection released on Monday, but even that figure remains the second highest on the planet, after Hong Kong according to World Bank figures.

The Republic of Cyprus’ rate, per the same statistics, is 156 per cent, and is thus a little over half the number stated by the north’s telecommunications authority, while the European Union’s mobile penetration rate is 124 per cent and the overall global rate is 110 per cent.

Were the north to have a comparable mobile penetration rate to the Republic of Cyprus, it would have a population of around 725,000.

The statistics institute’s claim is lower even than that made by ‘prime minister’ Unal Ustel in July last year. He said that the north’s population was at the time 590,000, excluding foreign students and Turkish soldiers.

The question of how many people live in the north has been a hot topic in recent years, with many, including ruling coalition part DP ‘MP’ Serhat Akpinar and Turkish Cypriot mukhtars’ association chairman Akay Darbaz, suggesting that as many as a million people now live in the north.

Akpinar later told the Cyprus Mail that the north “must limit and stop” its handing out of ‘citizenships’ to stem its rapid population growth.

Typically, the larger estimates include foreign students at the north’s universities, with over 20 universities currently operational in the north, while local officials have complained the rapid growth in population numbers had left local authorities with inadequate funds to provide services to residents.

Turkish Cypriot Nicosia mayor Mehmet Harmanci, for example, had said that half of the official population of the capital’s northern sector are now university students.

“Within the borders of the Nicosia Turkish Municipality [LTB], there are 40,000 university students, which is half of the official population of our municipality and a third of our unofficial population,” he said in November 2023.