Not to be confused with Bulgars, a medieval Turkic tribe.
Bulgarian Turks
български турци(Bulgarian)
Bulgaristan Türkleri(Turkish)
Regions with significant populations
Ludogorie
Rhodopes
Southern Dobruja
Bulgaria
508,375 (2021 census)[1]
Turkey
326,000 (2005)[2]
Netherlands
10,000–30,000[3][4]
Sweden
500[5]
Northern Cyprus
2,000 – 10,000[6][7]
Belgium
4,807[8]
Austria
1,000[9]
Languages
Turkish · Bulgarian
Religion
Predominantly Sunni Islam and Alevism[10][11]
Some are irreligious or adherents to Christianity[12][13]
Part of a series of articles on
Turkish people
People
List of Turkish people
Population
Traditional Areas of Turkish Settlement
Turkish majorities:
Turkey
Northern Cyprus
Turkish minorities in the Balkans:
Bosnia
Bulgaria
Croatia
Greece
Kosovo
Montenegro
North Macedonia
Romania
Serbia
Turkish minorities in the Caucasus:
Azerbaijan
Georgia (Abkhazia and Meskhetia)
Turkish minorities in the Levant:
Iraq
Israel
Jordan
Lebanon
Syria
Turkish minorities in North Africa:
Algeria
Egypt
Libya
Tunisia
Other Turkish minorities:
Hungary
Saudi Arabia
Yemen
Modern Turkish diasporas
Turkish diasporas in Europe:
Austria
Belgium
Denmark
Finland
France
Germany
Ireland
Italy
Liechtenstein
Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Russia
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Ukraine
United Kingdom
Turkish diasporas in the Americas:
Canada
Mexico
United States
Turkish diasporas in Central Asia:
Kazakhstan
Kyrgyzstan
Turkmenistan
Uzbekistan
Turkish diasporas in Oceania:
Australia
New Zealand
Other Turkish diasporas:
Japan
Kuwait
Pakistan
Qatar
South Africa
United Arab Emirates
History
Prehistory of Anatolia
Prehistory of Eastern Thrace
Classical Anatolia
Byzantine Anatolia
The Seljuqs
Anatolian beyliks
Ottoman Empire
Republic of Turkey
Culture
Architecture
Art
Carpets
Cinema
Cuisine
Culture of the Ottoman Empire
Dance
Festivals
Folklore
Literature
Miniature
Music
Nazar boncuğu
Public holidays
Shadow plays
Sports
Theatre
Languages
Turkish
Cypriot Turkish
Ottoman Turkish
Karamanli Turkish
Old Anatolian Turkish
Oghuz
Turkic & Altaic
Religion
Atatürk's Reforms
Secularism
Freedom of religion
Presidency of Religious Affairs
Islam (Mosques)
Christianity
Judaism
Bahá'í Faith
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Bulgarian Turks (Bulgarian: български турци; Turkish: Bulgaristan Türkleri) are ethnic Turks from Bulgaria. According to the 2021 census, there were 508,375 Bulgarians of Turkish descent, roughly 8.4% of the population,[1] making them the country's largest ethnic minority. Bulgarian Turks also comprise the largest single population of Turks in the Balkans. They primarily live in the southern province of Kardzhali and the northeastern provinces of Shumen, Silistra, Razgrad and Targovishte. There is also a diaspora outside Bulgaria in countries such as Turkey, Austria, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway and Romania, the most significant of which are the Bulgarian Turks in Turkey.
Bulgarian Turks are the descendants of Turkish settlers who entered the region after the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans in the late 14th and early 15th centuries, as well as Bulgarian converts to Islam who became Turkified during the centuries of Ottoman rule.[14][15] However, it has also been suggested that some Turks living today in Bulgaria may be direct ethnic descendants of earlier medieval Pecheneg, Oghuz, and Cuman Turkic tribes.[16][17][18][19] According to local tradition, following a resettlement policy Karamanid Turks (mainly from the Konya Vilayet, Nevşehir Vilayet and Niğde Vilayet of the Karaman Province) were settled mainly in the Kardzhali area by the sultans Mehmed the Conqueror, Selim and Mahmud II.[20] The Turkish community became an ethnic minority when the Principality of Bulgaria was established after the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78. This community is of Turkish ethnic consciousness and differs from the majority Bulgarian ethnicity and the rest of the Bulgarian nation by its own language, religion, culture, customs, and traditions.
^ ab"Census 2021: 84.6% of population define themselves as Bulgarians, 8.4% Turks, 4.4% Roma". 24 November 2022. Archived from the original on 27 November 2022. Retrieved 27 November 2022.
^Cite error: The named reference tbmm.gov.tr was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^"Turkish Bulgarians fastest-growing group of immigrants in The Netherlands – Bulgaria abroad". The Sofia Echo. Archived from the original on 10 August 2016. Retrieved 29 September 2015.
^"Nieuwe Turk is Bulgaar|Binnenland". Telegraaf.nl. 21 July 2009. Archived from the original on 5 November 2012. Retrieved 29 September 2015.
^"Bli medlem", eBas - Kontaktnätet, archived from the original on 2 November 2022, retrieved 17 July 2023
^"Хиляди български турци не успяха да дадат своя вот в Кипър : : Novinar.bg". Novinar.net. Archived from the original on 29 December 2013. Retrieved 29 September 2015.
^"Най-известната тв водеща в Северен Кипър се изправя пред камерата на "Другата България" – Фактор Нюз". Bgfactor.org. Archived from the original on 13 December 2010. Retrieved 29 September 2015.
^"sln.be is for sale | www.belgischedomeinnamen.be" (PDF). Retrieved 30 January 2010.[dead link]
^"Avusturya'daki Bulgaristan Türkleri hala Bulgar isimlerini neden taşıyor?". Balkan Türkleri Kültür ve Dayanışma Derneği. Archived from the original on 15 May 2019. Retrieved 14 May 2012.
^H. T. Norris (1993). Islam in the Balkans: Religion and Society Between Europe and the Arab World. p. 98.
^İlyas Üzüm (1988–2016). "KIZILBAŞ". TDV Encyclopedia of Islam (44+2 vols.) (in Turkish). Istanbul: Turkiye Diyanet Foundation, Centre for Islamic Studies.
^Cite error: The named reference relcensus1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^Cite error: The named reference relcensus2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^Stein, Jonathan. The Politics of National Minority Participation in Post-communist Europe, p. 238. M.E. Sharpe, 2000. ISBN 0-7656-0528-7
^R.J.Crampton. "A concise history of Bulgaria", p. 36. Cambridge University Press, 1997.
^Hupchick 2002, pp.11
^Nicole 1990, pp.45
^Norris, Islam in the Balkans, pp. 146–47.
^"Еркечки Великден | PDF to Flipbook". Archived from the original on 15 January 2018. Retrieved 15 October 2021.
^"Професор Илбер Ортайлъ: Султаните Фатих и Махмуд са заселили Родопите с турци". Archived from the original on 2 February 2017. Retrieved 30 January 2017.
BulgarianTurks (Bulgarian: български турци; Turkish: Bulgaristan Türkleri) are ethnic Turks from Bulgaria. According to the 2021 census, there were 508...
The BulgarianTurks in Turkey represent a community of BulgarianTurks who immigrated over the years from Bulgaria to Turkey. They are notable in Turkey...
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Meskhetian Turks have a large diaspora in Central Asia; and Algerian Turks and Tunisian Turks have mostly settled in France. Since BulgarianTurks and Romanian...
British Turks (Turkish: Britanyalı Türkler) or Turks in the United Kingdom (Turkish: Birleşik Krallık'taki Türkler) are Turkish people who have immigrated...
Turks in Germany, also referred to as German Turks and Turkish Germans (German: Türken in Deutschland/Deutschtürken; Turkish: Alamancılar), are ethnic...
communities in Bulgaria (BulgarianTurks), Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosnian Turks), Cyprus (Meskhetian Turks), Greece (Cretan Turks, Dodecanese Turks, and Western...
France in 1965; and Sweden in 1967. More recently, BulgarianTurks, Romanian Turks, and Western Thrace Turks have also migrated to Western Europe. In 1997...
The Balkan Turks or Rumelian Turks (Turkish: Balkan Türkleri, Rumeli Türkleri) are the Turkish people who have been living in the Balkans since the Ottoman...
mortality, the rate of natural increase among BulgarianTurks was almost identical to that among ethnic Bulgarians (12.1‰ vs. 11.1‰), while the rate among the...
of Muslims in Bulgaria stood at 638,708 corresponding to 9.8% of the population. Ethnically, Muslims in Bulgaria are Turks, Bulgarians and Roma, living...
Most scholars have agreed that the Bulgarian Muslims are a "religious group of Bulgarian Slavs who speak Bulgarian as their mother tongue and do not understand...
Turks in the Netherlands (occasionally and colloquially Dutch Turks or Turkish-Dutch; Dutch: Turkse Nederlander; Turkish: Hollanda Türkleri) refers to...
Bulgarian Muslims BulgarianTurksBulgarianTurks in Turkey Crimean Tatars in Bulgaria Muhacir Pomaks Romani people in BulgariaTurks in Bulgaria Exodus...
565). Furthermore, 12 individuals declared to be "Turk" and 91 "Bulgarian-Turkish" (see BulgarianTurks); the rest declared other Turkic ethnicities. In...
Democracy and Justice (PDS), led by Nedim Gencev; and the Union of the BulgarianTurks (SBT), led by Seyhan Türkkan. However, these movements, as well as...
short period after it. On the other hand, BulgarianTurks, Pomaks and Muslim Roma from Northern Thrace in Bulgaria, were expelled and settled in the whole...
the Balkan Turks who faced harassment and discrimination in their homelands. New waves of Turks and other Muslims expelled from Bulgaria and Yugoslavia...
unsuccessful assimilation efforts in Bulgaria were primarily directed at Muslims, most notably BulgarianTurks, but non-Islamic groups have also faced...
modern nation-states, especially from the Balkans (e.g. BulgarianTurks and Western Thrace Turks), from the island of Cyprus (i.e. Turkish Cypriots from...
ethnic Turks live. After the 1923 Bulgarian coup d'état minority schools (including Turkish) were closed, nationalism gained more popularity in Bulgaria, in...
Trukhmen Turks in Abkhazia Meskhetian Turks Cyprus Cypriot TurksTurks in Bosnia BulgarianTurksTurks in Croatia Dodecanese Turks Kosovan Turks Macedonian...
Turks in Italy, also referred to as Turkish Italians or Italian Turks, (Turkish: İtalya Türkleri) refers to Italian citizens of full or partial Turkish...
Bulgaria's highest-ranked club in UEFA. Bulgaria portal Outline of Bulgaria /bʌlˈɡɛəriə, bʊl-/ ; Bulgarian: България, romanized: Bŭlgariya Bulgarian:...
assimilation, which, in the Bulgarian conditions, was effected not by the nation-state but by another ethnic group - BulgarianTurks. Other factors also accounted...
majority of Turks from Bulgaria migrated to Germany in the 1990s asylum regime, which provided generous social benefits. BulgarianTurks are to be found...
following is a list of the Flags of Bulgaria. "Flag of Bulgaria". Encyclopedia Britannica. "People's Republic of Bulgaria, 1967-1971". www.fotw.info. Wikimedia...