The recent presidential elections in Iran have forced many to take a new look at the "Azerbaijani question" within that state. The victory of Masoud Pezeshkian, an ethnic Azerbaijani, is presented by the masses as a kind of renaissance of Turkism. Inside Iran, however, they do not think so. The living example of Ali Khamenei is the best proof of that. And what about outside Iran? Outside that state, they like to count, for example, the same Azerbaijanis. Their number and potential. Experts give different, and at the same time extremely contradictory, data. Thus, in Azerbaijan itself, the number of "their own" is estimated at 30 million people, which is substantial. Hotheads count as many as 50 million. A more realistic, averaged estimate is considered to be the figure of 25 million people. Let's sort this out.
Let's talk about the provinces
Every non-titular nation has region(s) within which they may be the dominant ethnic group. We will use materials from 2023. Azerbaijanis, as is asserted, dominate in the following provinces:
East Azerbaijan — 4,140,000 people (Let us assume 95%) West Azerbaijan — 3,553,000 people (Let us assume 70%) Ardabil — 1,328,000 people (Let us assume 95%) Zanjan — 1,137,000 people (Let us assume 95%)
A substantial number of Azerbaijanis live in Tehran (with its province), whose population is 14,437,000. From 20 to 25% of the province's population are Azerbaijanis. We will count it as 25%. A noticeable presence is recorded in the following provinces:
Hamadan — 1,801,000 people (Let us assume 60%)
Qazvin — 1,377,000 people (Let us assume 60%)
In the rest of Iran, there are from 1 million to 2 million Azerbaijanis. Particular attention here should be paid to the province of West Azerbaijan. A substantial number of Kurds live in this region. A note should be made here. In the Russian-language space, it is customary to believe that in this region there are 20-25% Kurds. A big question... and not at the prompting of the Azerbaijanis themselves? The Kurds disagree with this — by their estimates, they make up from 40 to 50% of the province. It is noteworthy that in the parliamentary elections held on March 1, 2 out of 3 parliamentary mandates were won by Kurds, not Azerbaijanis. Of particular interest to us are the results in the shahrestan of Urmia (a district of the province). It is this city that is customarily considered the stronghold of the local Azerbaijanis (in fact, it is Khoy), but even here 7 out of 12 mandates remained with the Kurds. There is hysteria in Azerbaijani media in connection with this. A whole series of justifications has been found for the failed results. In them, however, there is no variant in which the Kurds, as an actively reproducing minority, could have caught up with the Azerbaijanis in quantitative terms. Why is this possible? The Azerbaijani population of the province is concentrated around the western shore of Lake Urmia, and is the majority (as is believed) in two large shahrestans: Urmia and Khoy. It also makes up about 50% of the population of the shahrestan of Salmas. Urmia and Khoy are the two largest cities in the province. After them comes Salmas, and then already two purely Kurdish cities: Mahabad and Bukan. Azerbaijanis also dominate in other shahrestans, such as Maku (which is depopulating strongly) or Poldasht. If we pay attention, we will notice two interesting trends. First, Kurds predominantly live in rural areas. Second, in almost all shahrestans with a predominantly Azerbaijani population (except Urmia and a few sparsely populated districts), the population is declining. Thus, the population of the shahrestan of Khoy has declined by almost 10% since 2006; if in 2006 there lived 366,000 people there, today it is from 330,000 to 335,000 people according to data from open sources. Kurdish shahrestans do not record population decline. Nevertheless, we do not have exact data on the national composition of the province, and the data recording 20-25% Kurdish population is clearly outdated. We will concede a little to the Kurds; we will consider that there are not 40% of them in the province, but only 30%.
Summing up all of the above: EA (3,933,000) + WA (2,487,000) + ARD (1,261,000) + HAM (1,081,000) + ZAN (1,080,000) + QAZ (826,000) + TEH (3,609,000) = 14,277,000 people. Plus from 1 to 2 million Azerbaijanis in other provinces of Iran.
It turns out that, based on materials from 2023 (Iran's population was 86,700,000 in 2023), and also using the highest percentages for calculating the share of Azerbaijanis (in reality we have no grounds to consider the conditional province of East Azerbaijan so ethnically homogeneous), we get the following results — Azerbaijanis in Iran, at best, number from 14 to 16.5 million people, or from 16 to 19%. If we take as a basis the figure of 80% for the provinces of East Azerbaijan, Ardabil and Zanjan, then the estimate will shrink by another million. Summarizing, the most negative estimate of the Azerbaijani population of Iran is 12 million people (~14%), the most positive, if rounded, is 17 million people (19.6%). We will consider that there are ~15,000,000 Azerbaijanis in Iran.
Note: Kurds in Turkey today make up from 25 to 30% of the population. In 1980, when the Kurds in Turkey "raised their heads," there were ~14-15% of the population. This is comparable to the number of Azerbaijanis in Iran. However, we do not see any armed struggle, not even attempts. At best, it is a couple of rallies once a decade. By the way, during the Second Karabakh War, actions in support of Azerbaijan's aggression took place exclusively in the provinces listed above (with the exception of the city of Rasht).
What about the birth rate?
