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?

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Answer 1 · 2018-04-05T14:30:29

13.2 million

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.