Persian people

The Persians are an Iranian ethnic group who speak the Persian language as their native language. They share the same Persian culture, cuisine and history. In Western writings, it is common to name all ancient Iranian peoples as Persian, although some of them were not of the Persian culture, and did not speak the Persian language.

Persians
ایرانیان فارسی‌زبان

Total population
c. 52.5 million[1]
Regions with significant populations
Iran	49,312,834 (61–65% of total population)[2][3]
Turkey	618,000[4]
Iraq	405,000[5]
USA	331,000[6][7][8]
Israel	250,000[9]
UAE	238,250[10]
Germany	200,000[11][12]
Canada	173,760[13][14]
Russia	172,303[not in the source given][6][15]
Qatar	160,000[16]
Languages
Persian Caucasian Tat,[17][18][19][20][21][22][23] and Judeo-Tat ), Luri_language
Religion
Primarily Shia Islam, Sunni Islam, Sufi Islam Irreligion, Bahá'í, Zoroastrianism

In terms of religion, most Persians today follow the Shia Islam branch of Islam while there is a sizeable population of ethnic Sunni Persians mostly living in southern Iran in Fars province. Historically, the religion of the Persians was Zoroastrianism however this religion declined after the Muslim conquest of Iran and Persians began to gradually convert to Islam and become Muslim.

Related pages

• Persian language