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The Turks (Turkish: Türkler), or the Turkish people (Türk Halkı), are a nation (millet) in the meaning an ''ethnos'' (Halk in Turkish), defined more by a sense of sharing a common Turkish culture and having a Turkish mother tongue, than by citizenship, religion or by being subjects to any particular country. In a historic context the word Turk or Turkish has also a wider meaning, because—especially in the past—it referred to all Muslim inhabitants of the Ottoman Empire irrespective of their ethnicity. Today, the word is primarily used for the inhabitants of Turkey, but may also refer to the members of sizeable Turkish-speaking populations in Bulgaria, Cyprus and other lands of the former Ottoman Empire, as well as parts of Central Asia and the ex-Soviet Union. Large Turkish communities have also been established in Western Europe (particularly in Germany), North America and Australia.