The Laz people in Turkey refers to an ethnic group who are native to eastern Black Sea coast of northeastern Turkey, and their descendants.
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Numbers
In the census of 1965, 26,007 Turkish citizens spoke Laz as mother language. Proportionally, they were most numerous in Artvin (5.8%), Rize (2.0%) and Sakarya (0.7%). 3,943 of these could only speak Laz. Another 55,158 spoke Laz as second best language.
Terminology
The Turkish public sometimes uses the name "Laz" generally to refer to all inhabitants of Turkey's Black Sea provinces east of Samsun, and the word is often associated with certain social stereotypes. However, the Laz themselves are increasingly keen to differentiate themselves from other inhabitants of these regions. Also, the non-Laz does not want to be called "Laz", preferring to be called Karadenizli ("from the Black Sea region"). The Laz language (Lazca in Turkish) is a Kartvelian language, also known as South Caucasian, unrelated to the Black Sea dialect of Turkish language.