Turkish people
Turkish people or Turks (Turkish: Türkler) are the largest Turkic people who speak various dialects of the Turkish language and form a majority in Turkey and Northern Cyprus. In addition, centuries-old ethnic Turkish communities still live across other former territories of the Ottoman Empire. Article 66 of the Turkish Constitution defines a Turk as anyone who is a citizen of Turkey.[101] While the legal use of the term Turkish as it pertains to a citizen of Turkey is different from the term's ethnic definition,[102][103] the majority of the Turkish population (an estimated 70 to 75 percent) are of Turkish ethnicity.[104][105] The vast majority of Turks are Muslims and follow the Sunni faith.[82]
Not to be confused with Turkic peoples.
The ethnic Turks can therefore be distinguished by a number of cultural and regional variants, but do not function as separate ethnic groups.[106][82] In particular, the culture of the Anatolian Turks in Asia Minor has underlain and influenced the Turkish nationalist ideology.[106] Other Turkish groups include the Rumelian Turks (also referred to as Balkan Turks) historically located in the Balkans;[82][107] Turkish Cypriots on the island of Cyprus, Meskhetian Turks originally based in Meskheti, Georgia;[108] and ethnic Turkish people across the Middle East,[82] where they are also called Turkmen or Turkoman in the Levant (e.g. Iraqi Turkmen, Syrian Turkmen, Lebanese Turkmen, etc.).[109] Consequently, the Turks form the largest minority group in Bulgaria,[63] the second largest minority group in Iraq,[48] Libya,[110] North Macedonia,[66] and Syria,[98] and the third largest minority group in Kosovo.[75] They also form substantial communities in the Western Thrace region of Greece, the Dobruja region of Romania, the Akkar region in Lebanon, as well as minority groups in other post-Ottoman Balkan and Middle Eastern countries. The mass immigration of Turks also led to them forming the largest ethnic minority group in Austria,[111] Denmark,[112] Germany,[113] and the Netherlands.[113] There are also Turkish communities in other parts of Europe as well as in North America, Australia and the Post-Soviet states. Turks are the 13th largest ethnic group in the world.
Turks from Central Asia settled in Anatolia in the 11th century, through the conquests of the Seljuk Turks. This began the transformation of the region, which had been a largely Greek-speaking region after previously being Hellenized, into a Turkish Muslim one.[114][115][116] The Ottoman Empire came to rule much of the Balkans, the South Caucasus, the Middle East (excluding Iran, even though they controlled parts of it), and North Africa over the course of several centuries. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, persecution of Muslims during the Ottoman contraction and in the Russian Empire resulted in large-scale loss of life and mass migration into modern-day Turkey from the Balkans, Caucasus, and Crimea; the immigrants were both Turkish and non-Turkish people, and overwhelmingly Muslim.[117] The empire lasted until the end of the First World War, when it was defeated by the Allies and partitioned. Following the Turkish War of Independence that ended with the Turkish National Movement retaking much of the territory lost to the Allies, the Movement ended the Ottoman Empire on 1 November 1922 and proclaimed the Republic of Turkey on 29 October 1923.
