Nüfus müdürlüğü — meaning and English translation

The Nüfus Müdürlüğü in each district is the local arm of the Directorate General of Civil Registration and Nationality (NVİGM) in Ankara. It registers life events, keeps the family registers, issues identity cards and, in recent years, passports and driving licences, and prints civil registry extracts and residence certificates on request. Births that occur in the UK are entered here after the consulate forwards the registration, and a UK divorce recognised under Article 27/A is recorded here too.

We translate it as “Civil Registry Office (Nüfus Müdürlüğü)” and its parent body as “Directorate General of Civil Registration and Nationality”. The literal “Population Directorate” is avoided: it is a calque that tells an English reader nothing about the office's function.

The name appears as the issuing authority on almost every Turkish civil document a UK caseworker sees. See, for instance, Turkish birth certificate translation.