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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Iran
Index
By far the largest Turkic-speaking group are the Azarbaijanis,
who account for over 85 percent of all Turkic speakers in Iran.
Most of the Azarbaijanis are concentrated in the northwestern
corner of the country, where they form the majority population in
an area between the Caspian Sea and Lake Urmia and from the Soviet
border south to the latitude of Tehran. Their language, Azarbaijani
(also called Azeri or Turkish), is structurally similar to the
Turkish spoken in Turkey but with a strikingly different accent.
About half of all Azarbaijanis are urban. Major Azarbaijani cities
include Tabriz, Urmia, Ardabil, Zanjan, Khoy, and Maragheh. In
addition, an estimated one-third of the population of Tehran is
Azarbaijani and there are sizable Azarbaijani minorities in other
major cities, such as Hamadan, Karaj, and Qazvin. The life styles
of urban Azarbaijanis do not differ from those of Persians, and
there is considerable intermarriage among the upper classes in
cities of mixed populations. Similarly, customs among Azarbaijani
villagers do not appear to differ markedly from those of Persian
villagers. The majority of Azarbaijanis, like the majority of
Persians, are Shia Muslims. A tiny minority of Azarbaijanis are
Bahais
(see Non-Muslim Minorities
, this ch.).
Data as of December 1987
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