Turkey has a population of 66 million people and is made up almost entirely of two ethnic groups: Turks and Kurds. There are four times as many Turks as Kurds. How many Kurds live in Turkey?

1 Answer
Apr 5, 2018

13.2 million

Explanation:

We will make two equations from this word problem since there are two pieces of information.

I'm going to give "Turks" the variable t and "Kurds" the variable k.

Since Turkey's population of 66 million is the combination of Turks and Kurds, we can make this equation:

t + k = "66,000,000"

And since the four times as many Turks as Kurds, we can make this second equation:

t= 4k

Now substitute that into the first equation and solve:

t + k = "66,000,000"

(4k) + k = "66,000,000"

5k = "66,000,000"

k = "13,200,000"

The total number of Kurds is 13.2 million.