Apart from Thrace, a small minority of Turks exists in the Dodecanese islands of Rhodes and Kos. They were not included in the 1923 population exchange as the Dodecanese were annexed from Italy in 1947 after World War II. After annexation of islands, their Muslim inhabitants, Greek and Turkish speakers, were granted Greek citizenship. Today, about 5,000 Turks live in the Dodecanese islands of Rhodes (numbering 3,000) and Kos (numbering 2,000) and use Turkish in everyday life. In Rhodes and Kos, the teaching of the Turkish language was "de facto" abolished in the early 1970s.