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Census 2021: where Turkish speakers live in the UK
The 2021 census counted 132,651 Turkey-born residents across the UK, up from 101,721 in 2011. More than seven in ten British Turks live in London, concentrated in five north and east London boroughs.
The numbers
The 2021 census recorded 132,651 residents born in Turkey across the United Kingdom: 124,758 in England, 4,348 in Scotland, 2,886 in Wales and 659 in Northern Ireland. The 2011 figure was 101,721, so the Turkey-born population grew by roughly three in ten over the decade. Country of birth is a narrower measure than community: the wider Turkish-speaking population, counting Turkish Cypriots, Kurds from Turkey and British-born descendants, is generally put at several hundred thousand, and no census table captures it directly.
Where people are
London holds more than seven in ten. The concentration runs along the Green Lanes corridor and north from it: Hackney, Haringey with Wood Green and Green Lanes, Enfield taking in Palmers Green and Edmonton, Islington and Waltham Forest. Enfield alone recorded 16,704 Turkish and 5,922 Turkish Cypriot residents in 2011. Outside London the communities are smaller but long-established, in Birmingham, Manchester, Leicester and Nottingham.
Why we publish this
Because it shapes what we build. Postal timings to north London, the fact that the Manchester and Edinburgh consulates cover very different catchments, and which local register offices see Turkish documents week in week out are all downstream of this map. Our London page and Enfield page set out consular jurisdiction and delivery times for those areas, and delivery options explains how hard copies reach you.