Objectives: The aim of this study is to calculate the deaths due to lung cancer and the spatial relationship between the deaths and the development level of the regions in Turkey.

Methods: The distribution of lung cancer deaths by age group and sex and the population data were provided by the Turkish Statistical Institute. The socioeconomic and demographic data of 12 regions of Turkey were obtained using NUTS, developed by EUROSTAT. Socioeconomic index values of the regions were taken from the Socioeconomic Development Ranking Studies-2017 in Turkey. The map of Turkey was created using the geographic information system QGIS. The created map was transferred to GeoDa software. Distance was used as a criterion for the weighting matrix, and univariate local Moran's I and bivariate local Moran's I were used.

Results: The average annual number of deaths from lung cancer in Turkey between 2015 and 2019 was 19,698 in men and 3,645 in women. The annual average crude lung cancer mortality rate was 48.53 per 100,000 in men and 9.04 in women. The standardized rate was 49.70 per 100,000 (95% CI; 49.76-49.65) in men and 7.81 (7.83-7.85) in women. Spatial analysis showed that lung cancer mortality had a positive spatial autocorrelation of approximately 44.3% in men and 63% in women (Moran's I: 0.443 and 0.6 0.630, respectively). Lung cancer mortality was positively and significantly correlated with socioeconomic development index in both sexes using the least squares method (Moran's I R2 = 0.419 for men and R2 = 0.499 for women; p<0.001 for both).

Conclusions: The incidence of lung cancer varies between regions. Regional differences show a positive association with socioeconomic and industrial development levels.