Dân số người Talysh có các số liệu khác nhau. Các ước tính tổng quát cho ra cỡ 900 ngàn người, cư trú chủ yếu ở Iran và Azerbaijan. Theo Joshua Project năm 2019 người Talysh có tổng dân số 233 ngàn người, cư trú tại 4 nước là Iran, Azerbaijan, Nga và Kazakhstan.[1]
Bắc Talysh, hiện là một phần thuộc Cộng hòa Azerbaijan, trong lịch sử được biết đến với tên gọi Talish-i Gushtasbi. Ở Iran thì có quận Talesh ở tỉnh Gilan.[16]
^"Jamie Stokes,"Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Africa and the Middle East, Volume 1",Infobase Publishing, 2009. pp 682: "The Talysh are an Iranian people, most of whom now live in the Republic of Azerbaijan, on the southwestern shore of the Caspian Sea, "
^M. Wesley Shoemaker, "Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States 2008", Stryker-Post Publications, 2008. pp 141: "Here the Talysh, an Iranian people, live in their mountainous villages and support themselves by weaving rugs and carpets by hand in the traditional way."
[1]
^James Stothert Gregory, "Russian land, Soviet people: a geographical approach to the U.S.S.R.", Pegasus, 1968. pp 161: "Smaller Iranian groups are the Talysh and Kurds of Transcaucasia" [2]
^Michael P. Croissant, "The Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict: causes and implications", Greenwood Publishing Group, 1998. pp 67: "Talysh, an Iranian people whose language belongs to the northwest Iranian language group" [3]
^Charles Dowsett, "Sayatʻ-Nova: an 18th-century troubadour: a biographical and literary study", Peeters Publishers, 1997. pp 174: "Talish is the name of an Iranian people in Gilan" [4][liên kết hỏng]
^Garnik Asatrian & Habib Borjian (2005.). Talish and the Talashis (State of Research). Iran & the Caucasus, 9 (1), pp. 43–72 pp 46: "Despite the fact that the Talishis, both in Iran and in the north, have explicit Iranian identity, the situation with the Talishis in Azerbaijan Republic, living as an enclave within the predominantly Turkic environment, has inspired the southern intellectual milieu as well." pp 47: "The structures of both ethnonyms, Καδούσ- (Cadus-) and Tāliš, are similar:... Despite the obvious speculative character of the above etymology, still the Καδούσ-/Tāliš identification must not be discarded from the agenda of the ethnic history of the region, at least as a working hypothesis."