Muslim minority of Greece

The Muslim minority of Greece is the only explicitly recognized minority in Greece. It numbered 97,605 (0.91% of the population) according to the 1991 census,^[1] and unofficial estimates ranged up to 140,000 people or 1.24% of the total population, according to the United States Department of State.^[2]

Like other parts of the southern Balkans that experienced centuries of Ottoman rule, the Muslim minority of mainly Western Thrace in Northern Greece consists of several ethnic groups, some being Turkish speaking and some Bulgarian-speaking Pomaks, with most numbers descending from Ottoman-era Greek converts to Islam and Muslim Romas. While the legal status of the Muslim minority in Greece is enshrined in international law, namely the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, which also governs the status of the "Greek inhabitants of Constantinople" (the only group of the indigenous Greek population in Turkey that was exempt from forced expulsion under the Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations, along with that of the islands of Imbros and Tenedos under Article 14 of the Treaty), precise definitions pertaining thereto and scope of applicability thereof remain contested between the two countries.