By Tuba Sahin

ANKARA 

Turkey has the fourth-highest marriage rate among European countries with 7.1 nuptials per 1,000 people in 2017, Eurostat revealed Thursday on the occasion of Valentine's Day.

The highest marriage rate was in Albania with 7.9 marriages per 1,000 inhabitants. This was followed by Lithuania (7.5) and Romania (7.3).

The marriage rate used here is the crude marriage rate, defined as the ratio of the number of marriages during the year to the average population in that year.

The lowest marriage rates in 2017 was reported in Slovenia (3.1), Italy and Luxembourg (both 3.2) and Portugal (3.3).

According to the latest data, average marriage rate in the EU-28 was 4.3 percent.

In Turkey, a total of 569,459 people got married in 2017, down 4.2 percent year-on-year, according to Turkish Statistical Institute.

Meanwhile, the number of couples who divorced in 2017 rose by 1.8 percent from a year earlier, TurkStat data showed.

The number of people who divorced were 128,411 in 2017.