Migrations from Kars to the West of Turkey: A field research

Permanent or temporary settlement of individuals from one place to other regions was called as migration because of different reasons. There are many factors in the basis of the phenomenon of migration. Economic factors, state of employment, quality of education and welfare services, security matters, development differences among regions, capital density and social issues can be considered as important factors. In Turkey, migration movements have accelerated since 1950. Depending on migrations, process of urbanization has been increased. While rural population has been decreasing, urban population increases because of the migration movements. Migration movements eventuated in Turkey have generally occurred from undeveloped regions to developed regions. Internal migration movements, firstly occurred in Turkey happened from economically undeveloped East and South East Anatolia to more developed Marmara, Mediterranean and Aegean Anatolia regions. Kars City, which is one of the important residential area of East Anatolia, is also another emigrated city. It is striking that people emigrating from Kars prefer new settlement areas from West Cities. This study deals with Kars, one of the provinces of strategic and historical importance. It was aimed to reveal the reasons for immigration of Kars for years and to offer solutions in this regard. Moreover, in this context, another aim was to find out the reasons for migration by revealing the concerns of those who migrated from Kars to the West. It is also one of the aims of the study to shed light on the efforts to stop migration for Kars. This study consists of three main parts. In the first section, migration theories, types of migration and reasons of migration are emphasized. In addition to these, literature summary about immigration in Turkey was presented at the end of first section. In the second section, Kars City was presented according to some data on Kars. In the third section of the study, reasons of migration from Kars to West was investigated and tried to reveal according with the data obtained from immigrants. And also, some solutions were offered to stop migration from Kars.