A Turkish community currently lives in Western Thrace, in the north-eastern part of Greece. According to the 1991 census, there were approximately 50,000 Turks, out of the approximately 98,000 Muslim minority of Greece Other sources estimate the size of the minority between 120,000 and 130,000. The Turks of Thrace descend from Turkish populations living in the area during the Ottoman period. Like the Greeks of Istanbul, they were exempted from the 1923 population exchange; in contrast, Greek Muslims in Macedonia were not exempt from the exchange and so expatriated to Turkey.