Demographics of Turkey - Ethnic Groups

Ethnic Groups

The word Turk or Turkish also has a wider meaning in a historical context because, at times, especially in the past, it has been used to refer to all Muslim inhabitants of the Ottoman Empire irrespective of their ethnicity. The question of ethnicity in modern Turkey is a highly debated and difficult issue. Figures published in several different sources prove this difficulty by varying greatly.

It is necessary to take into account all these difficulties and be cautious while evaluating the ethnic groups. A possible list of ethnic groups living in Turkey could be as follows:

1. Turkic-speaking peoples: Turks, Azeris, Tatars, Karachays, Karakalpaks, Uzbeks, Crimean Tatars and Uyghurs
2. Indo-European-speaking peoples: Kurds, Zaza-Dimli Kurds, Bosniaks, Albanians, Pomaks, Armenians, Hamshenis, Gorani and Greeks
3. Semitic-speaking peoples: Arabs, Assyrians/Syriacs and Jews
4. Caucasian-speaking peoples: Circassians, Georgians, Laz and Chechens

According to the 2012 edition of the CIA World Factbook, 70-75% of Turkey's population consists of ethnic Turks, with Kurds accounting for 18% and other minorities between 7 and 12%. According to a Turkish newspaper, there is a 2008 report prepared for the National Security Council of Turkey by academics of three Turkish universities in eastern Anatolia, estimating approximately 55 million ethnic Turks, 12.6 million Kurds, 2.5 million Circassians, 2 million Bosniaks, 500,000-1.3 million Albanians, 1,000,000 Georgians, 870,000 Arabs, 600,000, Pomaks, 80,000 Laz, 60,000 Armenians, 25,000 Assyrians/Syriacs, 20,000 Jews, and 15,000 Greeks living in Turkey.