Ethnic Groups in Greece

Ethnic Groups In Greece

Indigenous minorities in Greece are small in size compared to regional standards. The country is largely ethnically homogeneous. This is mainly due to the population exchanges between Greece and neighboring Turkey (Convention of Lausanne) and Bulgaria (Treaty of Neuilly), which removed most Muslims (with the exception of the Muslims of Thrace) and those Christian Slavs who did not identify as Greeks, from Greek territory; the treaty also provided for the resettlement of ethnic Greeks from those countries, later to be followed by refugees. The 2001 census reported a population of 10,964,020 people.

The main officially recognized "minority" (μειονότητα, meionótita) is the Muslim minority (μουσουλμανική μειονότητα, mousoulmanikí meionótita) in Thrace, which numbered 97,604 people or 0.95% of the total population according to the 1991 census, and mainly consists of Turks, Pomaks and Roma. Other recognized minority groups are the Armenians numbering approximately 35,000, and the Jews (Sephardim and Romaniotes) numbering approximately 5,500.

Read more about Ethnic Groups In Greece:  Religious Minorities, Linguistic and Cultural Communities

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