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Turkish people Türkler
Total population
c. 70 million (around 1.05% of the world's population) (see also Turkish population & Turkish diaspora)
Regions with significant populations
Turkey 58,000,000 [1][2]  Germany 2,700,000 [3]  Iraq 2,500,000 [4][5]  Syria 1,500,000 [6]  Bulgaria 746,664 [7][8][9]  France 500,000 [10][11]  United Kingdom 500,000 [12]  United States 500,000 [13] [14]  Netherlands 400,000 [15][16][17]  Northern Cyprus 260,000 [18][19]  Austria 250,000 [20][21]  Belgium 200,000 [22][23]  Australia 150,000 [24][25]  Greece 130,000 [26][27][28]  Saudi Arabia 120,000 [29]  Switzerland 100,000 [30]  Russia 100,000 [31]  Republic of Macedonia 80,000 [32]  Sweden 70,000 [33][34]  Denmark 60,000 [35][36]  Azerbaijan 50,000 [37]  Canada 50,000 [38][39]  Romania 44,500 [40]  Egypt 40,000 [41]  Israel 20,000 [5]  Kosovo 20,000 [42]  Norway 15,000 [43]  Italy 13,500 [44]  Japan 10,000 [45]
Languages
Turkish
Religion
Predominantly Islam
Footnotes
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The Turkish people (Turkish: Türk Halkı), also known as "Turks" (Türkler) are defined mainly as citizens of the Republic of Turkey. An early history text provided the definition of being a Turk as "any individual within the Republic of Turkey, whatever his faith who speaks Turkish, grows up with Turkish culture and adopts the Turkish ideal is a Turk." This ideal came from the beliefs of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.^[46] Today the word is primarily used for the inhabitants of Turkey, but may also refer to the members of sizeable Turkish-speaking populations of the former lands of the Ottoman Empire and large Turkish communities which been established in Europe (particularly in Germany, France, and the Netherlands), as well as North America, and Australia.

[edit] History

Main article: History of the Turkish people

The name "Turk" was first used in the 6th century by the Chinese to designate nomadic peoples in Central Asia.^[47][48] The Oghuz Turks were the main Turkic people^[49] that moved into Anatolia.^[50] Many Turks began their migration after the victory of the Seljuks against the Byzantines at the Battle of Manzikert on August 26, 1071. The victory, led by Alp Arslan, paved the way for Turkish hegemony in Anatolia.^[51][52]

The House of Seljuk was a branch of the Oğuz Turks who in the 9th century resided on the periphery of the Muslim world, north of the Caspian and Aral Seas in the Yabghu Khaganate of the Oğuz confederacy.^[53] In the 10th century, the Seljuks started migrating from their ancestral homelands towards the eastern regions of Anatolia, which eventually became the new homeland of Oğuz Turkic tribes following the Battle of Manzikert (Malazgirt) in 1071. The victory of the Seljuks gave rise to the Anatolian Seljuk Sultanate; which developed as a separate branch of the larger Seljuk Empire that covered parts of Central Asia, Iran, Anatolia and the Middle East.^[54]

Alp Arslan led Seljuk Turks to victory against the Byzantines in 1071.

In 1243, the Seljuk armies were defeated by the Mongols and the power of the empire slowly disintegrated. In its wake, one of the Turkish principalities governed by Osman I was to evolve into the Ottoman Empire, thus filling the void left by the collapsed Seljuks and Byzantines.^[55]

In the 16th and 17th centuries, the Ottoman Empire was among the world's most powerful political entities. At the height of its power (16th–17th century), it spanned three continents, controlling much of Southeastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.^[56] Following years of decline, the Ottoman Empire entered World War I through the Ottoman-German Alliance in 1914, and was ultimately defeated. After the war, the victorious Allied Powers sought the dismemberment of the Ottoman state through the Treaty of Sèvres.^[55]

The occupation of İstanbul and İzmir by the Allies in the aftermath of World War I prompted the establishment of the Turkish national movement. ^[57] Under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Pasha, a military commander who had distinguished himself during the Battle of Gallipoli, the Turkish War of Independence was waged with the aim of revoking the terms of the Treaty of Sèvres.^[58] By September 18, 1922, the occupying armies were repelled and the country saw the birth of the new Turkish state.

The Gokturk Empire in 600.

[edit] Göktürk era

Main article: Göktürks

Turks are the principal descendants of large bands of nomads who roamed in the Altai Mountains (and thus are also called the Altaic peoples) in northern Mongolia and on the steppes of Central Asia. ^[59] The original Central Asian Turkic nomads established their first great empire in the 551 AD, a nomadic confederation that they called Göktürk, meaning "Sky Turk".^[60] A confederation of tribes under a dynasty of Khans whose influences extended during the sixth to eighth centuries from the Aral Sea to the Hindu Kush in the land bridge known as Transoxania. In the eighth century some Turkish tribes, among them the Oghuz, moved south of the Oxus River, while others migrated west to the northern shore of the Black Sea. ^[61]

The Seljuq Empire at its zenith upon the death of Malik Shah I in 1092.

[edit] Seljuk era

Main article: Great Seljuq Empire

The Seljuks (Turkish Selçuklular; Persian: سلجوقيان Ṣaljūqīyān; Arabic سلجوق Saljūq, or السلاجقة al-Salājiqa) were a Turkic tribe from Central Asia. ^[62] In 1037, they entered Persia and established their first powerful state, called by historians the Empire of the Great Seljuks. They captured Baghdad in 1055 and a relatively small contingent of warriors (around 5,000 by some estimates) moved into eastern Anatolia. In 1071, the Seljuks engaged the armies of the Byzantine Empire at Manzikert, north of Lake Van. The Byzantines experienced minor casualties despite the fact that Emperor Romanus IV Diogenes was captured. With no potent Byzantine force to stop them, the Seljuks took control of most of Eastern and Central Anatolia. ^[63] They established their capital at Konya and ruled what would be known as the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum. The success of the Seljuk Turks stimulated a response from Latin Europe in the form of the First Crusade.^[64] A counteroffensive launched in 1097 by the Byzantines with the aid of the Crusaders dealt the Seljuks a decisive defeat. Konya fell to the Crusaders, and after a few years of campaigning, Byzantine rule was restored in the western third of Anatolia. Although a Turkish revival in the 1140s nullified much of the Christian gains, greater damage was done to Byzantine security by dynastic strife in Constantinople in which the largely French contingents of the Fourth Crusade and their Venetian allies intervened. In 1204, these Crusaders conquered Constantinople and installed Count Baldwin of Flanders in the Byzantine capital as emperor of the so-called Latin Empire of Constantinople, dismembering the old realm into tributary states where West European feudal institutions were transplanted intact. Independent Greek kingdoms were established at Nicaea (present-day Iznik), Trebizond (present-day Trabzon), and Epirus from remnant Byzantine provinces. Turks allied with Greeks in Anatolia against the Latins, and Greeks with Turks against the Mongols. In 1261, Michael Palaeologus of Nicaea drove the Latins from Constantinople and restored the Byzantine Empire. Seljuk Rum survived in the late 13th century as a vassal state of the Mongols, who had already subjugated the Great Seljuk sultanate at Baghdad. Mongol influence in the region had disappeared by the 1330s, leaving behind gazi emirates competing for supremacy. From the chaotic conditions that prevailed throughout the Middle East, however, a new power was to emerge in Anatolia, the Ottoman Turks. ^[65]

[edit] Beyliks era

Main article: Anatolian Turkish Beyliks

Anatolian Beyliks (Turkish: Anadolu Beylikleri, Ottoman Turkish: Tevâif-i mülûk) were small Turkish principalities governed by Beys, which were founded across Anatolia at the end of the 11th century. Political unity in Anatolia was disrupted from the time of the collapse of the Anatolia Seljuk State at the beginning of the 14th century, when until the beginning of the 16th century each of the regions in the country fell under the domination of beyliks (principalities). Eventually, the Ottoman principality, which subjugated the other principalities and restored political unity in the larger part of Anatolia, was established in the Eskişehir, Bilecik and Bursa areas. ^[66] On the other hand, the area in central Anatolia east of the Ankara-Aksaray line as far as the area of Erzurum remained under the administration of the Ilhani General Governor until 1336. The infighting in Ilhan gave the principalities in Anatolia their complete independence. In addition to this, new Turkish principalities were formed in the localities previously under Ilhan occupation.

During the 14th century, the Turkomans, who made up the western Turks, started to re-establish their previous political sovereignty in the Islamic world. Rapid developments in the Turkish language and culture took place during the time of the Anatolian principalities. In this period, the Turkish language began to be used in the sciences and in literature, and became the official language of the principalities. New medreses were established and progress was made in the medical sciences during this period.

[edit] Ottoman era

Main article: Ottoman Empire

Mahmud II started the modernization of the Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman Empire 1299 – 1923

The Ottoman Empire (Old Ottoman Turkish: دولت عالیه عثمانیه Devlet-i Âliye-yi Osmâniyye, Late Ottoman and Modern Turkish: Osmanlı Devleti or Osmanlı İmparatorluğu), was a Turkish state. The state was known as the Turkish Empire or Turkey by its contemporaries. (See the other names of the Ottoman State.) Starting as a small tribe whose territory bordered on the Byzantine frontier, the Ottoman Turks built an empire that at the height of its power (16th–17th century), spanned three continents, controlling much of Southeastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.

As the power of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum weakened in the late 1200s, warrior chieftains claimed the lands of Northwestern Anatolia, along the Byzantine Empire's borders. Ertuğrul gazi ruled the lands around Söğüt, a town between Bursa and Eskisehir. Upon his death in 1281, his son, Osman, from whom the Ottoman dynasty and the Empire took its name, expanded the territory to 16,000 square kilometers. Osman I, who was given the nickname "Kara" (Turkish for black) for his courage,^[67] extended the frontiers of Ottoman settlement towards the edge of the Byzantine Empire. He shaped the early political development of the state and moved the Ottoman capital to Bursa.

By 1452 the Ottomans controlled almost all of the former Byzantine lands except Constantinople. On May 29, 1453, Mehmet the Conqueror captured Constantinople after a 53-day siege and proclaimed that the city was now the new capital of his Ottoman Empire^[68]. Sultan Mehmed's first duty was to rejuvenate the city economically, creating the Grand Bazaar and inviting the fleeing Orthodox and Catholic inhabitants to return. Captured prisoners were freed to settle in the city whilst provincial governors in Rumelia and Anatolia were ordered to send four thousand families to settle in the city, whether Muslim, Christian or Jew, to form a unique cosmopolitan society.

During the growth of the Ottoman Empire (also known as the Pax Ottomana), Selim I extended Ottoman sovereignty southward, conquering Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. He also gained recognition as guardian of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina; he accepted pious the title of The Servant of The Two Holy Shrines.^{[69] [70]}

Süleyman I, known in the West as Suleiman the Magnificent^[71] and in the East, as the Lawgiver (in Turkish Kanuni; Arabic: القانونى‎, al‐Qānūnī), for his complete reconstruction of the Ottoman legal system. The reign of Süleyman the Magnificent is known as the Ottoman golden age. The brilliance of the Sultan's court and the might of his armies outshone those of England's Henry VIII, France's François I, and Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. When Süleyman died in 1566, the Ottoman Empire was a world power. Most of the great cities of Islam--Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem, Damascus, Cairo, Tunis, and Baghdad were under the sultan's crescent flag. After Süleyman, however, the empire declined rapidly due to poor leadership; many successive Sultans largely depended upon their Grand Viziers to run the empire.

The Ottoman sultanate lasted for 624 years, but its last three centuries were marked by stagnation and eventual decline. By the 19th century, the Ottomans had fallen well behind the rest of Europe in science, technology, and industry. Reformist Sultans such as Selim III and Mahmud II succeeded in pushing Ottoman bureaucracy, society and culture ahead, but were unable to cure all of the empire's ills. Despite its collapse, the Ottoman empire has left an indelible mark on Turkish culture and architecture. Ottoman culture has given the Turkish people a splendid legacy of art, architecture and domestic refinement, as a visit to Istanbul's Topkapi Palace readily shows.

[edit] The Republic of Turkey

Main article: Turkey

Gazi Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

Eighteen female MPs joined the Turkish Parliament in 1935, at a time when women in a significant number of other European countries had no voting rights.

The Republic of Turkey was born from the disastrous World War I defeat of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman war hero, Mustafa Kemal Pasha (later called Atatürk), fled Istanbul to Anatolia in 1919; he organized the remnants of the Ottoman army into an effective fighting force, and rallied the people to the nationalist cause. Under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Pasha, a military commander who had distinguished himself during the Battle of Gallipoli; the Turkish War of Independence was waged with the aim of revoking the terms of the Treaty of Sèvres.^[58] By 1923 the nationalist government had driven out the invading armies, abolished the Ottoman Empire, promulgated a republican constitution, and established Turkey's new capital in Ankara. ^[72]

During a meeting in the early days of the new republic, Atatürk proclaimed:

To the women: Win for us the battle of education and you will do yet more for your country than we have been able to do. It is to you that I appeal.
To the men: If henceforward the women do not share in the social life of the nation, we shall never attain to our full development. We shall remain irremediably backward, incapable of treating on equal terms with the civilizations of the West.^[73]

—Mustafa Kemal

Chronology of Major Kemalist Reforms: ^[74]

The Kemalist revolution aimed to create a nation state (Turkish: Ulus) from the Turkish remnants of the Ottoman Empire. The meaning of Turkishness "Turkish: Türküm" is frequently misunderstood by those who fail to realize that it is not a description of ethnicity [the Turkic ethnicity] but a commitment to an 'imagined' nationhood of people living within the National Pact (Turkish: Misak-ı Milli) borders.^[75] "Turkishness" (citizenship of Turkey) is the cornerstone of the Republic of Turkey.^[75] Kemalist ideology defines the "Turkish People" as "those who protect and promote the moral, spiritual, cultural and humanistic values of the Turkish Nation."^[76] Kemalist ideology defines the "Turkish Nation" as a nation of Turkish People who always love and seek to exalt their family, country and nation, who know their duties and responsibilities towards the democratic, secular and social state governed by the rule of law, founded on human rights, and on the tenets laid down in the preamble to the constitution of the Republic of Turkey.^[76]

Upon the founder's death, his place at the head of the party and the nation was taken by his comrade-in-arms General Ismet Inönü, another hero of the War of Independence. Following Atatürk's advice, Inönü preserved Turkey's precarious neutrality during World War II, figuring that the war could only end in disaster for Turkey.

[edit] Geographic distribution

See also: Turkish population

See also: Turkish diaspora

Turks primarily live in Turkey; however, when the borders of the Ottoman Empire became smaller after World War I and the foundation of the new Republic; many Turkish people chose to stay outside Turkey's borders. Since then, some of them have migrated to Turkey but there are still significant minorities of Turks living in different countries such as in Northern Cyprus (Turkish Cypriots), Greece, Bulgaria, Syria, Iraq, the Republic of Macedonia, the Dobruja region of Romania and Kosovo, especially in Prizren.

The three most important Turkish groups are the Anatolian Turks, the Rumelian Turks (primarily immigrants from former Ottoman territories in the Balkans and their descendants), and the Central Asian Turks (Turkic-speaking immigrants from the Caucasus region, southern Russia, and Central Asia and their descendants).

Country or Region	Turkish population	Total Population	% Turkish	Notes
Turkey	55,000,000	71,892,808	80-88%
Europe	6,500,000 including Turkey: 54,500,000	631,000,000	0.9% including Turkey: 8.8%	The majority of Turks (3 million) live in germany
Asia	5,000,000 including Turkey: 63,000,000	4,050,404,000	0.1% including Turkey: 1.5%
Total of Eurasia	69,500,000	4,510,000,000	1.5%
Americas	600,000	890,000,000	0.07%
Oceania	150,000	32,000,000	0.4%
Africa	(unknown)	922,011,000	(unknown)
World Total	70,250,000	6,625,415,000	1.06%

[edit] Turks in Turkey

See also: Regions of Turkey, Provinces of Turkey, Districts of Turkey, and List of cities in Turkey

People who identify themselves as ethnic Turks comprise 80-88% of Turkey's population. ^[77] Regions of Turkey with the largest populations are İstanbul (+12 million), Ankara (+4.4 million), İzmir (+3.7 million), Bursa (+2.4 million), Adana (+2.0 million) and Konya (+1.9 million). ^[78]

The biggest city and the pre-Republican capital İstanbul is the financial, economic and cultural heart of the country. Other important cities include İzmir, Bursa, Adana, Trabzon, Malatya, Gaziantep, Erzurum, Kayseri, Kocaeli, Konya, Mersin, Eskişehir, Diyarbakır, Antalya and Samsun. An estimated 70.5% of the Turkish population live in urban centers.^[79] In all, 18 provinces have populations that exceed 1 million inhabitants, and 21 provinces have populations between 1 million and 500,000 inhabitants. Only two provinces have populations less than 100,000.

Age structure:

• 0-14 years: 24.4% (male 8,937,515/ female 8,608,375)
• 15-64 years: 68.6% (male 25,030,793/ female 24,253,312)
• 65 years and over: 7% (male 2,307,236/ female 2,755,576) (2008 est.)

Median age:

• total: 29 years
• male: 28.8 years
• female: 29.2 years (2008 est.)

Population growth rate:

• 1.013% (2008 est.)

(Figures are given according to the 2008 Central Intelligence Agency) ^[80]

[edit] Turks in Europe

Turkish parade in Berlin featuring a recreated Ottoman military band

As a legacy of the Ottoman Turkish Empire there are significant Turkish minorities in Europe such as the Turks in Bulgaria, Turks in the Republic of Macedonia, Turks in Kosovo and the Turks of Western Thrace.

The post-World War II migration of Turks to Europe began with ‘guest workers’ who arrived under the terms of a Labour Export Agreement with Germany in October 1961, followed by a similar agreement with the Netherlands, Belgium and Austria in 1964; France in 1965 and Sweden in 1967. As one Turkish observer noted, ‘it has now been over 40 years and a Turk who went to Europe at the age of 25 has nearly reached the age of 70. His children have reached the age of 45 and their children have reached the age of 20’. ^[81]

Despite the United Kingdom not being part of the Labour Export Agreement, it is still a major hub for Turkish emmigrants, and with a population of almost half a million Turks (an estimated 100,000 Turkish nationals and 130,000 nationals of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus currently live in the UK. These figures, however, do not include the much larger numbers of Turkish speakers who have been born or have obtained British nationality ^[82]), it is home to Europe's third largest Turkish community. High immigration has resulted in the Turkish language being the seventh most commonly spoken language in the United Kingdom. ^[83]

Due to the high rate of Turks in Europe, the Turkish language is also now home to one of the largest group of pupils after the German-speakers. Turkish in Germany is often used not only by members of its own community but also by people with a non-Turkish background. Especially in urban areas, it functions as a peer group vernacular for children and adolescents. ^[84]

[edit] Turks in Americas

According to The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History there is an estimated 500,000 Turks living in the United States ^[85]; the largest Turkish communities are found in Paterson, New York City, Chicago, Miami, and Los Angeles. Since the 1970s, the number of Turkish immigrants has risen to more than 2,000 per year. There is also a growing Turkish population in Canada, Turkish immigrants have settled mainly in Montreal and Toronto, although there are small Turkish communities in Calgary, Edmonton, London, Ottawa, and Vancouver. The population of Turkish Canadians in Metropolitan Toronto may be as large as 5,000. ^[86]

[edit] Culture

Main article: Culture of Turkey

Traditional Turkish coffee is ubiquitous in Turkish homes

Turkish people have a very diverse culture that is a blend of various elements of the Oğuz Turkic and Anatolian, Ottoman, and Western culture and traditions which started with the Westernization of the Ottoman Empire and continues today. This mix is a result of the encounter of Turks and their culture with those of the peoples who were in their path during their migration from Central Asia to the West.^[87][88] As Turkey successfully transformed from the religion-based former Ottoman Empire into a modern nation-state with a very strong separation of state and religion, an increase in the methods of artistic expression followed. During the first years of the republic, the government invested a large amount of resources into fine arts, such as museums, theatres, and architecture. Because of different historical factors playing an important role in defining the modern Turkish identity, Turkish culture is a product of efforts to be "modern" and Western, combined with the necessity felt to maintain traditional religious and historical values.