EN
Industrialization is a process which is based on precise and quantitative measurements and contains different basic changes in the economic structure of a country or region. The structural characteristics and spatial distribution of the industrial enterprises established during the industrialization process which is one of the most important elements of the socio-economic transformation in Turkey within a historical process has been the object of this study. The aim of the study was to establish the positions and significance of one thousand (1000) large industrial companies in the industry of Turkey by using the framework of criteria based on sales from production which have been maintained by the Istanbul Chamber of Industry on a regular basis. The workplace and number of employees of the companies on a province basis, sector based division, realized exports and sales from product output, corporate entities, structures, spatial distribution and other characteristics were taken into consideration in the study. Although the thousand large scale companies in Turkey based on production output sales comprised only0.40% of the enterprises active in the industrial sector in 2012, they comprised 12% of the labor force,59.6% of product output sales and 65.2% of all exports. On a regional basis, 54% of these companies are located in the Marmara region, 13.2% are located in Central Anatolia and 12.4% are located in the Aegean region; on a province basis, 63.4% are located in Istanbul, Izmir, Bursa, Kocaeli and Ankara. A sector based division of the companies shows that 21.4% are involved in food, beverage and tobacco processing, 19.6% are involved in the industry of metal goods, machinery, automotive industry, electrical tools and equipment and 16.1% deal with textiles, ready-to-wear, leather and the manufacturing of shoes. In terms of labor force numbers, the figures vary as 18.9%, 27.4% and 17.9% respectively.