Minorities in Turkey form a substantial part of the country's population, with an estimated 25-30% of the populace belonging to an ethnic minority according to the CIA World Factbook. While the Republic of Turkey, following the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, recognizes Armenians, Greeks and Jews as ethnic minorities, this legal status is not granted the Kurds, which constitute the largest minority by a wide margin (18%), nor any of the other minorities in the country.
| Ethnic groups in Turkey (World Factbook) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ethnic groups | Percent | |||
| Turks | 70-75% | |||
| Kurds | 18% | |||
| Others | 7-12% | |||
Famous quotes containing the words ethnic, groups and/or turkey:
“Caprice, independence and rebellion, which are opposed to the social order, are essential to the good health of an ethnic group. We shall measure the good health of this group by the number of its delinquents. Nothing is more immobilizing than the spirit of deference.”
—Jean Dubuffet (1901–1985)
“If we can learn ... to look at the ways in which various groups appropriate and use the mass-produced art of our culture ... we may well begin to understand that although the ideological power of contemporary cultural forms is enormous, indeed sometimes even frightening, that power is not yet all-pervasive, totally vigilant, or complete.”
—Janice A. Radway (b. 1949)
“A turkey is more occult and awful than all the angels and archangels. In so far as God has partly revealed to us an angelic world, he has partly told us what an angel means. But God has never told us what a turkey means. And if you go and stare at a live turkey for an hour or two, you will find by the end of it that the enigma has rather increased than diminished.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)