The Yörüks, also known as Yuruks or Yorouks, are an ethnic subgroup of Turkish people of Oghuz descent. Their name is derived from the Old Turkish verb "yörü," which means "to walk." While some members of this group maintain a nomadic lifestyle, they primarily inhabit the mountains of Anatolia and parts of the Balkan peninsula.
In the Balkans, Yörüks are distributed across a wide geographic area including eastern North Macedonia, parts of Bulgaria, southern Thrace in Greece, and north to Larissa in Thessaly. Due to Kipchak Turkic influence on dialects, the name is often pronounced as Yürük in Rumelia, characterized by specific vowel contractions, whereas it is typically referred to as Yörük in Anatolia.
Historically, the Yörüks were organized under the Yörük Sanjak. Unlike other sanjaks within the Ottoman Empire, this was not a defined territorial unit but functioned instead as a separate organizational entity.