Albanian-speakers of Western Thrace migrated towards today's European Turkey (Eastern Thrace), especially near Istanbul. Many Muslim Albanians achieved high office in Ottoman society and many of them, most notably the Köprülü family, became Grand Viziers of the Empire. The majority of the Albanian emigration came from Northern Kosovo and the Korça region of Albania. Descendants of this immigrants would later play an important role in the National Renaissance of Albania. The number of Albanians that resided in the region is unknown, as statistical data of the Ottoman Empire were based on religious identification (millets). Thus, the Orthodox Albanians were part of the Rûm millet,
Turks of Western Thrace regions where the majority of Muslim Turks lived. The Turkish community has a strong presence in the Komotini () and Xanthi () departments of East Macedonia and Thrace, while it is scarcely present in the Evros prefecture, the closest to the international boundary with Turkey. According to estimates, Muslims as a whole, represented 36-38% of the Rhodopi Department population, 12-24% in the Xanthi Department and less than 5% in the Evros Department. According to Ethnologue, in 1976 the Turkish language was spoken by 128,000 people in Greece, the majority of whom are located in the Western Thrace portion of the