Turkic peoples
The Turkic peoples are a collection of diverse ethnic groups of West, Central, East, and North Asia as well as parts of Europe, who speak Turkic languages.
The distribution of the Turkic languages | |
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| Over 170 million | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Turkey | 60,000,000–65,000,000 |
| Uzbekistan | 31,900,000 |
| Iran | 15,000,000–20,000,000 (18% of population) |
| Russia | 12,751,502 |
| Kazakhstan | 12,300,000 |
| China | 11,647,000 |
| Azerbaijan | 10,000,000 |
| European Union | 5,876,318 (Bulgaria 508,375) |
| Afghanistan | 4,600,000–5,300,000 (2017) |
| Turkmenistan | 4,233,600 |
| Kyrgyzstan | 4,500,000 |
| Iraq | 3,000,000 |
| Tajikistan | 1,200,000 |
| United States | 1,000,000+ |
| Syria | 800,000–1,000,000+ |
| Ukraine | 398,600 |
| Northern Cyprus | 313,626 |
| Australia | 59,488 (Turkish) |
| Mongolia | 135,618 |
| Lebanon | 200,000 |
| Moldova | 126,010 |
| North Macedonia | 81,900 |
| Languages | |
| Turkic languages | |
| Religion | |
| Various religions | |
According to historians and linguists, the Proto-Turkic language originated in Central-East Asia, potentially in Altai-Sayan region, Mongolia or Tuva. Initially, Proto-Turkic speakers were potentially both hunter-gatherers and farmers, but later became nomadic pastoralists. Early and medieval Turkic groups exhibited a wide range of both East Asian and West-Eurasian physical appearances and genetic origins, in part through long-term contact with neighboring peoples such as Iranian, Mongolic, Tocharian, Uralic and Yeniseian peoples, and others.
Many vastly differing ethnic groups have throughout history become part of the Turkic peoples through language shift, acculturation, conquest, intermixing, adoption, and religious conversion. Nevertheless, Turkic peoples share, to varying degrees, non-linguistic characteristics like cultural traits, ancestry from a common gene pool, and historical experiences. Some of the most notable modern Turkic ethnic groups include the Altai people, Azerbaijanis, Chuvash people, Gagauz people, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz people, Turkmens, Turkish people, Tuvans, Uyghurs, Uzbeks, and Yakuts.