The others, including Armenians, Arabs, Assyrians, Albanians, Bosniaks, Circassians, Chechens, Georgians, Pomaks, Romani, Laz people make 6–11% of the population according to 2016 estimate of CIA.

The concept of "minorities" has only been accepted by the Republic of Turkey as defined by the Treaty of Lausanne (1923) and thence strictly limited to Greeks, Jews and Armenians, only based on religious affiliation, excluding from the scope of the concept the ethnic identities of these minorities as of others such as the Kurds who make up 15% of the country; others include Assyrians of various Christian denominations, Alevis and all the others.

[24][26][27][28] According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Turkey), as of 2008, there were 89,000 Turkish citizens belonging to one of the three recognized minorities, two thirds of Armenian descent.

[31][32] 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.

[33] According to the 2016 edition of the CIA World Factbook, 70–75% of Turkey's population consists of ethnic Turks, with Kurds accounting for 19% and other minorities between 6 and 11%.

Ethnolinguistic estimates in 2014 by Ethnologue and Jacques Leclerc:[37][38][39] No exact data are available concerning the different ethnic groups in Turkey.

[49] A similar figure can be found in the current US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) the World Factbook (99.8%).

[2] However, these are based on the existing religion information written on every citizen's national id card, that is automatically passed on from the parents to every newborn, and do not necessarily represent individual choice.

[51] In a similar survey in 2016, Islam comprised 82% of the total population (65% Sunni and 4% Shi'a), followed by 7% no religion, 6% Spiritual but not religious, 4% Atheism, 3% Agnosticism, 2% Christian, 1% Protestantism, 1% Buddhism, 1% Mahayana and 1% other.

[56] In 2005, a Eurobarometer poll on Europeans views on ethics in science and technology reported 95% of Turkish citizens answered that "they believe there is a God", while about 2% responded "I believe there is so me sort of spirit or life force", about 1% that "they do not believe there is any sort of spirit, God, or life force" and about 1% "DK" (that they don't know).

[57] There is concern over the future of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, which suffers from a lack of trained clergy due to the closure of the Halki seminary.

[59] The drop was the result of the late Ottoman genocides, the population exchange between Greece and Turkey[60] and the emigration of Christians.

After the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and following Turkish War of Independence, an exodus by the large portion of Turkish (Turkic) and Muslim peoples from the Balkans (Balkan Turks, Albanians, Bosniaks, Pomaks), Caucasus (Abkhazians, Ajarians, Circassians, Chechens, Lezgins), Crimea (Crimean Tatar diaspora), and Crete (Cretan Turks) took refuge in present-day Turkey and moulded the country's fundamental features.

Trends of immigration towards Turkey continue to this day, although the motives are more varied and are usually in line with the patterns of global immigration movements — Turkey, for example, receives many economic migrants from nearby countries such as Armenia, Moldova, Georgia, Iran, and Azerbaijan, but also from Central Asia, Ukraine and Russia.