TURKEY
Religion

Cities in TURKEY

Akyarlar	Alanya	Ankara
Antalya	Beldibi	Belek
Bodrum	Colakli	Fethiye
Gumbet	Içmeler	Istanbul
Kemer	Konakli	Kumkoy
Kusadasi	Lara	Marmaris
	Side

Religion

Sulaymaniyah Mosque Istanbul, Turkey_{Photo: Harold Litwiller (CC BY 2.0) no changes made}

About 96% of the population belongs to Islam. Although there has been an official strict separation between Islam and the state in Turkey since 1923, Islam still has a major influence on social life, especially in rural areas. More than 85% of the Turkish and Kurdish Muslims belong to the Sunni religion. Not much remains of the quite numerous Christian and Jewish communities until the First World War. An estimated 15,000 Greek and 45,000 Armenian Orthodox Christians live in the major cities. There are also small Catholic and Protestant communities and various sects. In the southeast still live about 20,000 Syrian Orthodox (Jacobites) and a few thousand Arab Orthodox. Jacobites who fled to Western Europe became known in the 1970s as 'Christian Turks'. Turkey has a community of approximately 25,000 Sephardic Jews.

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Sources

Brosnahan, T. / Turkey
Lonely Planet

Graven, R. van den / Reishandboek Turkije
Elmar

Te gast in Turkije
Informatie Verre Reizen

Turkije
Het Spectrum

CIA - World Factbook
BBC - Country Profiles

Last updated March 2024
Copyright: Team The World of Info