Albanians of Western Thrace

The Albanians of Western Thrace form an ethnic minority in Greek Macedonia and Western Thrace along the border with Turkey. They speak the Northern Tosk subbranch of Tosk Albanian and are descendants of the Albanian population of Eastern Thrace who migrated during the Population exchange between Greece and Turkey in the 1920s.

In Greece they are known as Arvanites, a name that was applied to both Greeks and Albanians that immigrated from Albanian areas such as Northern Epirus during the Ottoman Empire. Some Albanian-speakers of Western Thrace and Macedonia use the common Albanian self-appellation, Shqiptar when speaking their own language and refer to Albanians from Albania with the exonym ‘’Alvanos’’.