Minorities in Turkey

Abdal

Groups of nomadic and semi-nomadic itinerants found mainly in central and western Anatolia. They speak an argot of their own and follow the Alevi faith.

Albanians

There are an estimated 500,000–6,000,000 people of Albanian descent in Turkey. According to the Turkish government there are only 1.3 million Albanians, with 500,000 considering themselves to have an Albanian national consciousness and the remainder being assimilated. However, these assumptions of the Turkish government are rejected by scholars who explain they are without any basis.

Arabs

Arabs in Turkey number between 800,000 and 1 million, and they mostly live in provinces near the Syrian border, particularly the Hatay region, where they made up two thirds of the population in 1939. However, including recent Syrian refugees, they make up to 5.3% of the population. Most of them are Sunni Muslims. However, there is a small group of Alawis, and another one of Arab Christians (mostly in Hatay Province) in communion with the Antiochian Orthodox Church.

Armenians

Armenians are indigenous to the Armenian Highlands which corresponds to the eastern half of modern-day Turkey, the Republic of Armenia, southern Georgia, western Azerbaijan, and northwestern Iran. Although in 1880 the word Armenia was banned from being used in the press, schoolbooks, and governmental establishments in Turkey and was subsequently replaced with words like eastern Anatolia or northern Kurdistan, Armenians had maintained much of their culture and heritage. The Armenian population of Turkey was greatly reduced following the Hamidian massacres and especially the Armenian Genocide, when over one and half million Armenians, virtually the entire Armenian population of Anatolia, were massacred. Prior to the Genocide in 1914, the Armenian population of Turkey numbered at about 1,914,620. The Armenian community of the Ottoman Empire before the Armenian genocide had an estimated 2,300 churches and 700 schools (with 82,000 students). This figure excludes churches and schools belonging to the Protestant and Catholic Armenian parishes since only those churches and schools under the jurisdiction of the Istanbul Armenian Patriarchate and the Apostolic Church were counted. After the Armenian genocide however, it is estimated that 200,000 Armenians remained in Turkey. Today there are an estimated 40,000 to 70,000 Armenians in Turkey, not including the Hamshenis.

Armenians under the Turkish Republican era were subjected to many policies which attempted to abolish Armenian cultural heritage such as the Turkification of last names, Islamification, geographical name changes, confiscation of properties, change of animal names, change of the names of Armenian historical figures (i.e. the name of the prominent Balyan family were concealed under an identity of a superficial Italian family called Baliani), and the change and distortion of Armenian historical events.

Armenians today are mostly concentrated around Istanbul. The Armenians support their own newspapers and schools. The majority belong to the Armenian Apostolic faith, with much smaller numbers of Armenian Catholics and Armenian Evangelicals. The community currently functions 34, 18 schools, and 2 hospitals.

Assyrians

Assyrians were once a large ethnic minority in the Ottoman Empire, but following the early 20th century Assyrian Genocide, many were murdered, deported, or ended up emigrating. Those that remain live in small numbers in their indigenous South Eastern Turkey (although in larger numbers than other groups murdered in Armenian or Greek genocides) and Istanbul. They number around 30,000.

Azerbaijanis

It is hard to determine how many ethnic Azeris currently reside in Turkey because ethnicity is a rather fluid concept in this country. and According to the Looklex Encyclopaedia, Azerbaijani people make up 800,000 of Turkey's population. Up to 300,000 of Azeris who reside in Turkey are citizens of Azerbaijan. In the Eastern Anatolia Region, Azeris are sometimes referred to as acem (see Ajam) or tat. They currently are the largest ethnic group in the city of Iğdır and second largest ethnic group in Kars.

Bosniaks

Today, the existence of Bosniaks in the country is evident everywhere. In cities like İstanbul, Eskişehir, Ankara, İzmir, or Adana, one can easily find districts, streets, shops or restaurants with names such as Bosna, Yenibosna, Mostar, or Novi Pazar. However, it is extremely difficult to estimate how many Bosniaks live in this country. Some Bosnian researchers believe that the number of Bosniaks in Turkey is about four million. Turkish politicians are aware of the large number of Bosniaks living in Turkey, and, referencing this in 2010, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said: "There are more Bosniaks living in Turkey than in Bosnia."

Bulgarians

People identifying as Bulgarian include a large number of the Pomak and a small number of Orthodox Bulgarians. According to Ethnologue at present 300,000 Pomaks in European Turkey speak Bulgarian as their mother tongue. It is very hard to estimate the number of Pomaks along with the Turkified Pomaks who live in Turkey, as they have blended into the Turkish society and have been often linguistically and culturally dissimilated. According to Milliyet and Turkish Daily News reports, the number of Pomaks along with the Turkified Pomaks in the country is about 600,000. According to the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Bulgarian Orthodox Christian community in Turkey stands at 500 members.

Circassians

According to Milliyet, there are approximately 2.5 million Circassians in Turkey. However such assumptions have no basis. According to scholars and EU there are three to five million Circassians in Turkey. The closely related ethnic groups Abazins (10,000) and Abkhazians (39,000) are also counted as Circassians. The Circassians are a Caucasian immigrant people; the vast majority of them have been assimilated and only 20% still speak one of the Circassian languages. The Circassians in Turkey are almost exclusively Sunni Muslims of Hanafi madh'hab.

Dagestani peoples

Various ethnic groups from Dagestan are present in Turkey. Dagestani peoples live in villages in the provinces like Balıkesir, Tokat and also scattered in other parts of the country. A majority among them are Nogais; Lezgins and Avars are other significant ethnic groups. Kumyks are also present.

Dutch

Approximately 15,000 Dutch live in Turkey.

Crimean Tatars

The official number of Crimean Tatars is 150,000 (in the center of Eskişehir) but the real population (in the whole of Turkey) may be a few million. They mostly live in Eskişehir Province and Kazan-Ankara.

Levantines

Levantines continue to live in Istanbul (mostly in the districts of Galata, Beyoğlu and Nişantaşı), İzmir (mostly in the districts of Karşıyaka, Bornova and Buca), and the lesser port city Mersin where they had been influential for creating and reviving a tradition of opera. Famous people of the present-day Levantine community in Turkey include Maria Rita Epik, Franco-Levantine Caroline Giraud Koç and Italo-Levantine Giovanni Scognamillo.

Georgians

There are approximately 1 million people of Georgian ancestry in Turkey according to the newspaper Milliyet. Georgians in Turkey are mostly Sunni Muslims of Hanafi madh'hab. Immigrant Georgians are called "Chveneburi", but autochthonous Muslim Georgians use this term as well. Muslim Georgians form the majority in parts of Artvin Province east of the Çoruh River. Immigrant Muslim groups of Georgian origin, found scattered in Turkey, are known as Chveneburi. The smallest Georgian group are Catholics living in Istanbul.

Greeks

The Greeks constitute a population of Greek and Greek-speaking Eastern Orthodox Christians who mostly live in Istanbul, including its district Princes' Islands, as well as on the two islands of the western entrance to the Dardanelles: Imbros and Tenedos (Turkish: Gökçeada and Bozcaada). It is widely accepted that the Greek speaking Byzantine Christians form a major part of the ancestry of modern "Turks", having been converted and assimilated over the course of the last one thousand years.

They are the remnants of the estimated 200,000 Greeks who were permitted under the provisions of the Treaty of Lausanne to remain in Turkey following the 1923 population exchange, which involved the forcible resettlement of approximately 1.5 million Greeks from Anatolia and East Thrace and of half a million Turks from all of Greece except for Western Thrace. After years of persecution (e.g. the Varlık Vergisi and the Istanbul Pogrom), emigration of ethnic Greeks from the Istanbul region greatly accelerated, reducing the 119.822 -strong Greek minority before the attack to about 7,000 by 1978. The 2008 figures released by the Turkish Foreign Ministry places the current number of Turkish citizens of Greek descent at the 3,000–4,000 mark. According to Milliyet there are 15,000 Greeks in Turkey, while according to Human Rights Watch the Greek population in Turkey was estimated at 2,500 in 2006. According to the same source, the Greek population in Turkey was collapsing as the community was by then far too small to sustain itself demographically, due to emigration, much higher death rates than birth rates and continuing discrimination. In recent years however, most notably since the economic crisis in Greece, the trend has reversed. A few hundred to over a thousand Greeks now migrate to Turkey yearly for employment or educational purposes.

Christian Greeks were forced to migrate. Muslim Greeks live in Turkey today. They live in cities of Trabzon and Rize.

Since 1924, the status of the Greek minority in Turkey has been ambiguous. Beginning in the 1930s, the government instituted repressive policies forcing many Greeks to emigrate. Examples are the labour battalions drafted among non-Muslims during World War II as well as the Fortune Tax levied mostly on non-Muslims during the same period. These resulted in financial ruination and death for many Greeks. The exodus was given greater impetus with the Istanbul Pogrom of September 1955 which led to thousands of Greeks fleeing the city, eventually reducing the Christian Greek population to about 7,000 by 1978 and to about 2,500 by 2006 before beginning to increase again after 2008.

Persians

Some 500,000 Iranians are reported to be residing in Turkey.

Jews

There have been Jewish communities in Asia Minor since at least the 5th century BC and many Spanish and Portuguese Jews expelled from Spain came to the Ottoman Empire (including regions part of modern Turkey) in the late 15th century. Despite emigration during the 20th century, modern-day Turkey continues to have a small Jewish population of about 20,000.

Kabarday

Kabard villages in Turkey are concentrated on Uzunyayla plateau of Kayseri Province.

Karachay

Karachay people live in villages concentrated in Konya and Eskişehir.

Central Asian Turkic peoples

Turkey received refugees from among the Pakistan-based Kazakhs, Turkmen, Kirghiz, and Uzbeks numbering 3,800 originally from Afghanistan during the Soviet war in Afghanistan. Kayseri, Van, Amasva, Cicekdag, Gaziantep, Tokat, Urfa, and Serinvol received via Adana the Pakistan-based Kazakh, Turkmen, Kirghiz, and Uzbek refugees numbering 3,800 with UNHCR assistance.

Kazakhs

They are about 30,000 Kazakh people living in Zeytinburnu-Istanbul. It is known that there are Kazakh people in other parts of Turkey, for instance Manisa, Konya. In 1969 and 1954 Kazakhs migrated into Anatolia's Salihli, Develi and Altay regions. Turkey became home to refugee Kazakhs. The Kazakh Turks Foundation (Kazak Türkleri Vakfı) is an organization of Kazakhs in Turkey. Kazakhs in Turkey came via Pakistan and Afghanistan. Kazak Kültür Derneği (Kazakh Culture Associration) is a Kazakh diaspora organization in Turkey.

Kyrgyz

Turkey's Lake Van area is the home of Kyrgyz refugees from Afghanistan. Turkey became a destination for Kyrgyz refugees due to the Soviet war in Afghanistan from Afghanistan's Wakhan area 500 remained and did not go to Turkey with the others. Friendship and Culture Society of Kyrgyzstan (Кыргызстан Достук жана Маданият Коому) (Kırgızistan Kültür ve Dostluk Derneği Resmi Sitesi) is a Kyrgyz diaspora organization in Turkey.

They were airlifted in 1982 from Pakistan where they had sought refugee after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan at the end of 1979. Their original home was at the eastern end of the Wakhan Corridor, in the Pamirs, bordering on China. It is not known how many Kyrgyz still live in Van and how many have moved on to other parts of Turkey.

Uzbeks

In the 1800s Konya's north Bogrudelik was settled by Tatar Bukharlyks. In 1981 Afghan Turkestan refugees in Pakistan moved to Turkey to join the existing Kayseri, Izmir, Ankara, and Zeytinburnu based communities. Turkish based Uzbeks have established links to Saudi based Uzbeks.

Uyghurs

A community of Uyghurs live in Turkey. Kayseri received Uyghurs numbering close to 360 via the UNHCR in 1966-1967 from Pakistan. The Turkey based Uighur diaspora had a number of family members among Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, India, and Pakistan based Uighurs who stayed behind while the UNHCR and government of Turkey had Kayseri receive 75 Uighurs in 1967 and 230 Uyghurs in 1965 and a number in 1964 under Alptekin and Bughra. We never call each other Uyghur, but only refer to ourselves as East Turkestanis, or Kashgarlik, Turpanli, or even Turks.- according to some Uyghurs born in Turkey. Turkish girls were interested in the Central Asian looking men.

A community of Uighurs live in Istanbul. Tuzla and Zeytinburnu mosques are used by the Uyghurs in Istanbul. Piety is a characteristic of among Turkey dwelling Uyghurs.

Istanbul's districts of Küçükçekmece, Sefaköy and Zeytinburnu are home to Uighur communities. Eastern Turkistan Education and Solidarity Association is located in Turkey. Abdurahmon Abdulahad of the East Turkistan Education Association supported Uzbek Islamists who protested against Russia and Islam Karimov's Uzbekistan government. Uyghurs are employed in Küçükçekmece and Zeytinburnu restaurants. Turkey is home to 50,000 Uyghurs. East Turkistan Immigration Association, East Turkistan Culture and Solidarity Association, and Eastern Turkistan Education and Solidarity Association are Uyghur diaspora organizations in Turkey.

Uyghur workers at a restaurant in Zeytinburnu provided money to the 2017 Istanbul nightclub attack terrorist for his taxi fare. The Seferoğlu Sokak-based Uyghurs in Zeytinburnu aided the attacker when he fled the nightclub. Seven Uyghurs were arrested by Turkish police. Zeytinburnu became the site of over 50 police sweeps against "East Turkistanis" (Uyghurs), Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and Uzbeks. Zeytinburnu is infamous for being used by Syria destined jihadists as a transit point. Kygyzstani and Kazakhstani residences and properties were investigated by the Turks in the aftermath. Multiple Uighurs were seized and detained outside of Istanbul in Selimpasa by Turkey after they were linked to the assault on the nightclub. Kyrgyz passports were used to go to Turkey by Uighurs with both ISIS and Al-Qaeda being joined in Syria by Uighurs. Uighurs were also seized in Izmir where 36 suspects were detained Kyrgyzstan passports were used by several families from "East Turkestan" with 20 children, and 22 women and men, all of whom were among 40 arrested by Turkish security forces in Izmir's Bornova and Buca districts. Weapons were found with the Izmir suspects. Xinjiang was where the Uighurs in Izmir originated from. The authorities in Turkey said a Uighur carried out the assault no the nightclub. He was named as a Uighur by Veysi Kaynak, Deputy Prime Minister. The attack was reported as Uighur by Haber Turk. There are more than 100,000 Xinjiang and Central Asian origin unregistered people in Zeytinburnu. Turkey's Uighur populations is 300,000 according to Bulent Arinc.

Meskhetian Turks

There is a community of Meskhetian Turks (Ahiska Turks) in Turkey.

Kurds

Ethnic Kurds are the largest minority in Turkey, composing around 20% of the population according to Milliyet, 18% of the total populace or c. 14 million people according to the CIA World Factbook, and as much as 23% according to Kurdologist David McDowall. Unlike the Turks, the Kurds speak an Iranian language. There are Kurds living all over Turkey, but most live to the east and southeast of the country, from where they originate.

In the 1930s, Turkish government policy aimed to forcibly assimilate and Turkify local Kurds. Since 1984, Kurdish resistance movements included both peaceful political activities for basic civil rights for Kurds within Turkey, and violent armed rebellion for a separate Kurdish state.

Laz

Most Laz people today live in Turkey, but the Laz minority group has no official status in Turkey. Their number today is estimated at 2,250,000. The Laz are Sunni Muslims. Only a minority are bilingual in Turkish and their native Laz language which belongs to the South Caucasian group. The number of the Laz speakers is decreasing, and is now limited chiefly to the Rize and Artvin areas. The historical term Lazistan — formerly referring to a narrow tract of land along the Black Sea inhabited by the Laz as well as by several other ethnic groups — has been banned from official use and replaced with Doğu Karadeniz (which also includes Trabzon). During the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878, the Muslim population of Russia near the war zones was subjected to ethnic cleansing; many Lazes living in Batum fled to the Ottoman Empire, settling along the southern Black Sea coast to the east of Samsun.

Nakh peoples

Chechens and Ingush live in the provinces of Istanbul, Kahramanmaraş, Mardin, Sivas, and Muş.

Ossetians

Ossetians emigrated from North Ossetia since the second half of the 19th century, end of Caucasian War. Today, the majority of them live in Ankara and Istanbul. There are 24 Ossetian villages in central and eastern Anatolia. The Ossetians in Turkey are divided into three major groups, depending on their history of immigration and ensuing events: those living in Kars (Sarıkamış) and Erzurum, those in Sivas, Tokat and Yozgat and those in Muş and Bitlis.

Poles

There are only 4,000 ethnic Poles in Turkey who have been assimilated into the main Turkish culture. The immigration did start during the Partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Józef Bem was one of the first immigrants and Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski founded Polonezköy in 1842. Most Poles in Turkey live in Polonezköy, Istanbul.

Roma

The Roma in Turkey number approximately 700,000 according to Milliyet. Sulukule is the oldest Roma settlement in Europe. The descendants of the Ottoman Roma today are known as Xoraxane Roma and are of the Islamic faith.

Zazas

The Zazas are a community who identifies as ethnic Kurds. Their language Zazaki is a language spoken in eastern Anatolia between the rivers Euphrates and Tigris. It belongs to the northwest-Iranian group of the Iranian language branch of the Indo-European language family. The Zaza language is related to Kurdish, Persian and Balōchi. An exact indication of the number of Zaza speakers is unknown. Internal Zaza sources estimate the total number of Zaza speakers at 3 to 6 million.

Atheists

In Turkey, Atheism is the biggest group after Islam. Nearly 2% of country's population defines itself as atheist.

Bahá'í

Turkish cities Edirne and İstanbul are in the holy places of this religion. Estimate Bahá'í population in Turkey is 10,000 (2008)

Christians

Christianity has a long history in Anatolia which, nowadays part of the Republic of Turkey's territory, was the birthplace of numerous Christian Apostles and Saints, such as Apostle Paul of Tarsus, Timothy, St. Nicholas of Myra, St. Polycarp of Smyrna and many others. Two out of the five centers (Patriarchates) of the ancient Pentarchy were located in present-day Turkey: Constantinople (Istanbul) and Antioch (Antakya). All of the first seven Ecumenical Councils which are recognized by both the Western and Eastern churches were held in present-day Turkey. Of these, the Nicene Creed, declared with the First Council of Nicaea (İznik) in 325, is of utmost importance and has provided the essential definitions of present-day Christianity.

Today the Christian population of Turkey estimated more than 120,000, includes an estimated 70,000 Armenian Orthodox, 35,000 Roman Catholics, 17,000 Syriac Orthodox, 8,000 Chaldean Catholic, 3,000-4,000 Greek Orthodox[4], 10,000-18,000 Antiochian Greeks and smaller numbers of Bulgarians, Georgians, and ethnic Turkish Protestants.

Orthodox Christians

Orthodox Christianity forms a tiny minority in Turkey, comprising far less than one tenth of one percent of the entire population. The provinces of Istanbul and Hatay, which includes Antakya, are the main centres of Turkish Christianity, with comparatively dense Christian populations, though they are very small minorities. The main variant of Christianity present in Turkey is the Eastern Orthodox branch, focused mainly in the Greek Orthodox Church.

Protestants

Protestants comprise far less than one tenth of one percent of the population of Turkey. Even so, there is an Alliance of Protestant Churches in Turkey. The constitution of Turkey recognizes freedom of religion for individuals. The Armenian Protestants own three Istanbul Churches from the 19th century. On 4 November 2006, a Protestant place of worship was attacked with six Molotov cocktails. Turkish media have criticized Christian missionary activity intensely.

There is an ethnic Turkish Protestant Christian community most of them came from recent Muslim Turkish backgrounds, rather than from ethnic minorities.

Roman Catholics

There are around 35,000 Catholics, constituting 0.05% of the population. The faithful follow the Latin, Byzantine, Armenian and Chaldean Rite. Most Latin Rite Catholics are Levantines of mainly Italian or French background, although a few are ethnic Turks (who are usually converts via marriage to Levantines or other non-Turkish Catholics). Byzantine, Armenian, and Chaldean rite Catholics are generally members of the Greek, Armenian, and Assyrian minority groups respectively. Turkey's Catholics are concentrated in Istanbul.

In February 2006, Catholic priest Andrea Santoro, an Italian missionary working in Turkey for 10 years, was shot twice at his church near the Black Sea. He had written a letter to the Pope asking him to visit Turkey. Pope Benedict XVI visited Turkey in November 2006. Relations had been rocky since Pope Benedict XVI had stated his opposition to Turkey joining the European Union. The Council of Catholic Bishops met with the Turkish prime minister in 2004 to discuss restrictions and difficulties such as property issues. More recently, Bishop Luigi Padovese, on June 6, 2010, the Vicar Apostolic of Turkey, was killed.

Jews

There have been Jewish communities in Asia Minor since at least the 5th century BC and many Spanish and Portuguese Jews expelled from Spain were welcomed to the Ottoman Empire (including regions part of modern Turkey) in the late 15th century. Despite emigration during the 20th century, modern-day Turkey continues to have a small Jewish population. There is a small Karaite Jewish population numbering around 100. Karaite Jews are not considered Jews by the Turkish Hakhambashi.

Alawites

The exact number of Alawites in Turkey is unknown, but there were 185 000 Alawites in 1970. As Muslims, they are not recorded separately from Sunnis in ID registration. In the 1965 census (the last Turkish census where informants were asked their mother tongue), 180,000 people in the three provinces declared their mother tongue as Arabic. However, Arabic-speaking Sunni and Christian people are also included in this figure.

Alawites traditionally speak the same dialect of Levantine Arabic with Syrian Alawites. Arabic is best preserved in rural communities and Samandağ. Younger people in Çukurova cities and (to a lesser extent) in İskenderun tend to speak Turkish. Turkish spoken by Alawites is distinguished by Alawites and non-Alawites alike with its particular accents and vocabulary. Knowledge of Arabic alphabet is confined to religious leaders and men who had worked or studied in Arab countries.

Alevis

Alevis are the biggest religious minority in Turkey. Nearly 15%-25% of all Turkish population is in this group. They are mainly Turk but there are significant Kurd and Zaza populations who are Alevi

Twelvers

Twelver shia population of Turkey is nearly 3 million and most of them are Azeris. Half million of Ja'faris live in İstanbul.

Yazidi

Turkey is in the area of the Yazidi homeland, along with Syria and Iraq. The Yazidi population in Turkey was estimated at around 22.000 in 1984. Earlier figures are difficult to obtain and verify, but some estimate there were about 100.000 Yazidi in Turkey in the early years of the 20th century.

Most Yazidis left the country and went abroad in the 1980s and 1990s, mostly to Germany and other European countries where they got asylum due to the persecution as an ethnic and religious minority in Turkey. The area they resided was in the south eastern area of Turkey, an area that had/has heavy PKK fighting. Now a few hundred Yazidi are believed to be left in Turkey.