Turkish population

There are also significant Turkish minorities who still live in the Balkans, the Caucasus, the Middle East and the Levant, and North Africa.

More recently, the Turkish people have emigrated from their traditional areas of settlement for various reasons, forming a large diaspora.

In 2010 Boris Kharkovsky from the Center for Ethnic and Political Science Studies said that there was up to 15 million Turks living in the European Union.

[92] According to Dr Araks Pashayan ten million "Euro-Turks" alone were living in Germany, France, the Netherlands and Belgium in 2012.

[93] In addition, there are also significant Turkish communities living in Austria, the UK, Switzerland, Italy, Liechtenstein and the Scandinavian countries.

The Turkish people are scattered throughout the former Ottoman Empire . Today they form a majority in Turkey and Northern Cyprus . There are also significant Turkish minorities in Balkans , the Caucasus , and the Arab world .
The 1965 Turkish census was the last census in which people were asked about their mother tongue. This map shows the distribution of people who spoke Turkish during this period.
Prior to the Cyprus dispute Turkish Cypriots lived throughout the island of Cyprus . However, the 1974 Cypriot coup d'état initiated by the Greek military junta , which sought to annex the island to Greece , prompted the Turkish invasion of Cyprus followed by the declaration of the Turkish Federated State of Cyprus . Since the establishment of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in 1983 the majority of Turkish Cypriots live mostly in the northern region of the island. The break-away state remains internationally unrecognised, except by Turkey .
Map of the Turkish population in Bulgaria . According to the 2011 Bulgarian census the Turks make up a majority in the Kardzhali Province (66.2%) and the Razgrad Province (50.02%).
According to the 2011 census of Kosovo the Turks make up a majority in Mamuša (93.1%).
According to the 2002 census of the Republic of Macedonia the Turks make up a majority in the Centar Župa Municipality (80.2%) and the Plasnica Municipality (97.8%).
According to the 2011 census of Romania the Turks make up a majority in Dobromir (61.93%) located in the Constanța County .
The Meskheti region of Georgia had the largest Turkish population in Caucasus prior to the Second World War . In 1944 Joseph Stalin deported the Meskhetian Turkish minority to other parts of the Soviet Union , where they now form a large diaspora.
The Misak-ı Millî ("national oath") sought to include Turkish majority areas in the Mosul Vilayet (in Iraq) and the Aleppo Vilayet and the Zor Sanjak (in Syria) in the proposals for the new borders of a Turkish nation in 1920.
The majority of Iraqi Turks live in the so-called " Turkmeneli " region.
Turkish people form a majority in Kouachra and Aydamun , in the Akkar District of Lebanon .