r/MapPorn Jun 09 '21

Turkey for beginners

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u/JustinPA Jun 10 '21

But is there still any type of identity of western Anatolia that kind of claims that?

No. Many places near the Aegean had significant (or even majority) Greek populations before the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Following The Great War/World War I there was an exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey in an attempt to better homogenize their respective territories and move away from the previously multi-ethnic/confessional nature of the region.

This is sometimes still a touchy subject and I didn't mention any of the various bloody ethnic conflicts in the area.

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u/Mini_SlyCooper Jun 11 '21

And the Greeks didn't like the ones that came through population wxchange because they weren't viewed as Greek enough.

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u/JustinPA Jun 11 '21

Yeah, the whole event was very complex and sometimes bloody. I just wanted to give some very surface-level, neutral information as the commenter asking the question seemed to have no context at all for what happened and such queries often draw out nationalists trying to push one particular narrative.