The Turkic World encompasses almost 200 million people, spans a very important geographic space between Europe and China. Turkic peoples are found all the way from Macedonia through the Balkans to Turkey and on to Kazakhstan and China’s Xinjiang province (home of the Uyghurs) in the east, from Russia in the north to Iran and Afghanistan in the south.
The Turkic languages constitute a language family of around 30 languages. About 170 million people speak a Turkic language as their first language. The language with the greatest number of speakers is Anatolian Turkish (the language of Turkey) with nearly 60 million first language speakers.
There are six independent Turkic countries: Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Turkey, Uzbekistan. There are some Turkic political units in the Russian Federation including Bashkortostan, Tatarstan, Chuvashia, Khakassia, Tuva, Yakutia, the Altai Republic, Kabardino-Balkaria, and Karachayevo-Cherkessiya.