Thousands of ethnic Greeks who lived on the southern coasts of the Black Sea for centuries were exiled from Turkey during the conflicts that accompanied the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the appearance of the modern Turkish state.
Armenia claimed that about 2 million of its compatriots were sufferers of genocide under the Ottoman Empire during WWI.
Ankara denies the “genocide” charge, countering that 300-500 thousand Armenians and at least as considerable Turks died in civil conflict when Armenians rioted against their Ottoman sovereigns and sided with occupying Russian forces.
Approximately 1.5 million Greeks lived in Anatolia and East Thrace before 1923. Nowadays, the Greeks in Turkey make up a tiny population of Greek and Greek-speaking Eastern Orthodox Christians who mainly live in Istanbul (about 2,000, according to the United Nations) and on the two islands in the Aegean Sea (Imbros and Tenedos).
Armenians in Turkey today have an estimated population of 60,000, down from a bulk population of over 2 million Armenians between the years 1914 and 1921.
Below is another version of the map showing the number of Greeks and Armenians by Turkish provinces in 1914 and at present.
Source: vividmaps.com
