page_title: British Turks
section_title: Mainland Turkish migration
hierarchical_section_title: British Turks / History / Mainland Turkish migration
caption_attribution_description: English: Turkish Festival in London.
context_page_description: British Turks or Turks in the United Kingdom are Turkish people who have immigrated to the United Kingdom. However, the term may also refer to British-born persons who have Turkish parents or who have a Turkish ancestral background.
  Turks first began to emigrate in large numbers from the island of Cyprus for work and then again when Turkish Cypriots were forced to leave their homes during the Cyprus conflict. Turks then began to come from Turkey for economic reasons. Recently, smaller groups of Turks have begun to immigrate to the United Kingdom from other European countries.
  As of 2011, there was a total of about 500,000 people of Turkish origin in the UK, made up of approximately 150,000 Turkish nationals and about 300,000 Turkish Cypriots. Furthermore, in recent years, there has been a growing number of ethnic Turks immigrating to the United Kingdom from Algeria and Germany. Many other Turks have immigrated to Britain from parts of the southern Balkans where they form an indigenous ethnic and religious minority dating to the early Ottoman period, particularly Bulgaria, Romania, the Republic of North Macedonia, and the province of East Macedonia and Thrace in Northern Greece.
context_section_description: Migration from the Republic of Turkey to the United Kingdom began when migrant workers arrived during the 1970s and were then followed by their families during the late 1970s and 1980s. Many of these workers were recruited by Turkish Cypriots who had already established businesses such as restaurants. These workers were required to renew their work permits every year until they became residents after living in the country for five years. The majority who entered the United Kingdom in the 1970s were mainly from rural areas of Turkey. However, in the 1980s, intellectuals, including students, and highly educated professionals arrived in the United Kingdom, most of which received support from the Turkish Cypriot community. Mainland Turks settled in similar areas of London in which the Turkish Cypriots lived in; however, many have also moved to the outer districts such as Enfield and Essex.
caption: A Turkish festival in the City of London.
exif: {"Image Make": "FUJI PHOTO FILM CO., LTD.", "Image Model": "SP-2000", "Image XResolution": "150", "Image YResolution": "150", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "FDi V4.5 / FRONTIER350/370-6.6-0E-818", "Image DateTime": "2005:07:21 11:53:26", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ReferenceBlackWhite": "[0, 255, 128, 255, 128, 255]", "Image ExifOffset": "302", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0200", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "1998:01:01 00:00:00", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2005:07:21 11:53:26", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "7", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2144", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1232", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed"}