Muslim minority of Greece

The Muslim minority of Greece is the only explicitly recognized minority in Greece. It numbers 97,605 people or 0.91% of the total population, according to the 1991 census, and 140,000 people or 1.24% of the total population, according to the United States Department of State.

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 and some Bulgarian-speaking Pomaks, with smaller numbers descended from Ottoman-era Greek converts to Islam. The precise identity of the these groups is in contention with Turkey insisting that most Muslims in Western Thrace are ethnically Turkish, and Greece claiming many are Pomak and others of local origin who converted to Islam and adopted the Turkish language and identity in the Ottoman period. These arguments have territorial overtones, since the self-identity of the Muslims in Western Thrace could conceivably support territorial claims to the region by Turkey.