Rapid industrialization and urbanization in Turkey, especially over the last twenty five
years, has provided better living standards to its residents, but it also caused a decrease in environmental
quality. In late 1970’s, air quality monitoring activities were started in some major cities by individual
researchers in Turkey. It was just around the 1990’s that a countrywide program on continuous air
pollution monitoring in major province centers and selected large towns was launched. The impact of
air pollution on people depend on various factors, such as existence and magnitude of coal powered
energy generation plants, type of urban heating and their efficiency, and the numbers and specifications
of vehicles. In this study, current Turkish urban air quality over the turn of the Millennium (1992–
2001) is studied in the light of the country’s worst cities in terms of outdoor air quality, the number of
upper respiratory diseases, sinusitis, bronchitis, and pneumonia cases in these provinces reported by
the state medical treatment facilities in 2001. The population that is under outdoor urban air pollution
hazard was computed. A comparative analysis between the provinces that use natural gas and others
that use fossil fuels was also completed in order to project monetary gains if the studied provinces
will transform their indoor heating and industrial operations to be run by natural gas or other cleaner
energy sources. If natural gas use in air polluted urban centers could be realized in the near future,
approximately 212 to 350 million US dollars per annum could to be saved just by reducing health
related problems caused by outdoor air pollution.