Armenians in Turkey
Armenians in Turkey (Turkish: Türkiye Ermenileri; Armenian: Թուրքահայեր or Թրքահայեր, T’urk’ahayer lit. 'Turkish Armenians'), one of the indigenous peoples of Turkey, have an estimated population of 50,000 to 70,000, down from a population of over 2 million Armenians between the years 1914 and 1921. Today, the overwhelming majority of Turkish Armenians are concentrated in Istanbul. They support their own newspapers, churches and schools, and the majority belong to the Armenian Apostolic faith and a minority of Armenians in Turkey belong to the Armenian Catholic Church or to the Armenian Evangelical Church. They are not considered part of the Armenian Diaspora, since they have been living in their historical homeland for more than four thousand years.
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 170,000 (70,000 Turkish citizens and 100,000 of other nationalities) (excluding Crypto-Armenians) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Istanbul, Diyarbakır, Kayseri, Mardin, Şanlıurfa, Vakıflı, Tercan, and Iskenderun, Tunceli, Kars, Iğdır, Van, Erzurum, Adana, Kahramanmaraş, Ankara, Erzincan | |
| Languages | |
| Turkish (majority), Western Armenian (minority) | |
| Religion | |
| Predominantly Armenian Apostolic with Armenian Catholic, Armenian Evangelical, and Muslim minorities. |
| Part of a series on |
| Armenians |
|---|
| Armenian culture |
| By country or region |
|
Armenian diaspora Russia |
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| Persecution |
Until the Armenian genocide of 1915, most of the Armenian population of Turkey (then the Ottoman Empire) lived in the eastern parts of the country that Armenians call Western Armenia (roughly corresponding to the modern Eastern Anatolia Region).
Armenians are one of the four ethnic minorities officially recognized in Turkey, together with Jews, Greeks, and Bulgarians.
In addition to local ethnic Armenians who are Turkish citizens, there are also many recent immigrants from Armenia in Istanbul. There is also an unknown number of officially Muslim citizens of the Republic of Turkey who have recently started to identify as Armenians based on their Armenian roots, after being Islamised decades or centuries earlier. They are referred as crypto-Armenians.