Ottoman Armenian population
Encyclopedia
The Ottoman Armenian
population size within the Ottoman Empire
between 1914 and 1915 is a controversial topic. Most estimates by Western scholars range from 1.3 to 2.0 million. Establishing the size of this population is very important in determining an accurate estimation of Armenian losses between 1915 and 1923 during the Armenian Genocide
and what followed as the Turkish War of Independence
.
This article presents some statistics of the Armenian population within the Ottoman Empire.
In 1867 the Council of States
took charge of drawing population tables, increasing the precision of population records. They introduced new measures of recording population counts in 1874. This led to the establishment of a General Population Administration, attached to the Ministry of Interior in 1881-1882. Somehow, these changes politicized the population counts.
. Abdolonyme Ubicini
, a French historian and journalist, was one of the first to publish the 1844 figure by adding that he considers it an underestimation of the total Ottoman Armenian population. Ubicini states:
A 20th century Turkish professor, İbrahim Hakkı Akyol, also considers the 1844 census as an underestimation of the total Ottoman population because the taxes to be set for each vilayet and kaza would be based on the census result, and the population wanted to avoid them. In 1867 the 2.4 million figure remains unchanged, and was used by Ottoman official Salaheddin Bey in a book published on the occasion of the International Exposition
in Paris
. On the same occasion, an Ottoman Armenian official named Migirdich Bey Dadian gives a 3.4 million figure which the Ottoman government did not contest.
After the internationalization of the Armenian Question
, and the Treaty of Berlin
that followed in 1878, the idea of a self governing Armenian nation became a possibility. Thus, census records of the Armenian population became important. The first record of the General Population Administration under Abdul Hamid
was half the figure in 1881-1882. The Ottoman Empire in 1877-78 lost Batumi
, Kars
and Ardahan
. The Armenian population statistics for those regions would have influenced the losses of Armenian population but can not account for the other million or more Armenians that are missing in the records of 1881-1882 under the reign of Sultan Hamid
.
The Ottoman statistics had been used by an American demographer
and Ottoman expert, professor Justin McCarthy
who mostly relied on those census figures to determine the Armenian population within the Ottoman Empire. McCarthy's records are mostly based on those of 1911-1912, 1905 and 1895-1896. By using the Ottoman population records and applying the population stability theory (using the men half pyramid) he provided the figure of 1,698,301.
While McCarthy numbers are the result of extensive studies, they have been highly contested by many specialists. Some of them, like Frédéric Paulin, have severely criticized McCarthy's methodology
and suggested that it is flawed. Hilmar Kaiser another specialist has made similar claims, as have professor Vahakn N. Dadrian and professor Levon Marashlian.
The critics not only question McCarthy's methodology and resulting calculations, but also his primary sources, the Ottoman censuses. They point out that there was no official statistic census in 1912; rather those numbers were based on the records of 1905 which were conducted during the reign of Sultan Hamid.
The Turkish author Kâzım Kadri writes, “During the reign of Abdul Hamid we lowered the population figures of the Armenians...” He adds, “By the order of Abdul Hamid the number of the Armenians deliberately had been put in low figures.”
Other evidence suggests such undercounts cut in half the actual Armenian population. In the district of Mus
(compromising Mus plain, Sassoun, and the counties of Mus) for example, the Armenian official in charge of the census, Garabed Potigian, presented the official figures as 225,000 Armenians and 55,000 Turks. Upon the insistence of his Turkish superiors he was forced to reduce the Armenian population to 105,000 and increase the Turkish population to 95,000. Lynch himself report similar incidences: “Pursuing our way, we meet an Armenian priest—a young, broad-shouldered, open-faced man. He seems inclined to speak, so we ask him how many churches there may be in Mush(Mus). He answers, seven; but the commissary had said four. A soldier addresses him in Kurdish; the poor fellow turns pale, and remarks that he was mistaken in saying seven; there cannot be more than four ...Such are a few of our experiences during our short sojourn at Mush.”
Sultan Hamid apparently considered the under evaluation presented to him of 900,000 as exaggeration.
The German chief of staff of the Ottoman Third Army, Colonel Felix Guse, complained that "The Turks knew only poorly their country, on top of that the possibility of getting reliable statistical figures was out of the question.
Fa'iz El-Ghusein, the Kaimakam of Kharpout, wrote in his book, that according to the Ottoman official statistics there were about 1.9 million Armenian's in the Ottoman Empire.
Another indication that other statistics might have existed is that Polybius in his book published in 1919, refer to a said “Ottoman Official Census of 1910.” But Justin McCarthy has questioned the information and considered it fabrication.
The Turkish historian Dr. Secil Akgun, claimed: “The Ottomans do not have a definite number. That is, we have in our hands contradictory numbers regarding the Armenian population within the borders of the Ottoman Empire. I would think that Basmacıyan gives the most accurate number. This is to be between two and three million.”
. While the minimum in the range represent the Armenian increases of population over years, the 1905 census hasn't shown any anomaly of Armenian increases, which suggest that there might have been a fixed quota of Armenian population, and that regardless of the census, there were much more Armenians within the Empire.
Another element that add, is that many Armenians, like many Jews and Christians, were considered as foreigners, because they had foreign nationalities or enjoyed the protection of foreign consulates and those for were not counted in those census statistics.
To this, add that Armenians were as well purposely undercounting themselves to escape the military tax by not registering.
The result of all those factors, is that the Armenian population censuses, according to the specialists that criticize them, is an important under counting of the Armenian population, that could have gone as far as misrepresenting it by half. Lynch critic itself regarding the inclusion of all the Muslims together, when there were probably Armenians in the count, is supported by the Ottoman census, that contain an anomaly that in some region like Van
, the Muslim population from one census to another jumped to about 50%, suggesting that numbers for the Ottoman government could have been used as political tool, and went as far as transferring Armenians in the table as Muslim.
In short, even though the Ottoman records were official data, and that few Western specialists and most Turkish specialists rely on them, most Western scholars ignore this data, because according to them it is unreliable.
according to the last Ottoman census 1914
to collect population figures of all Armenians in the Empire. A first attempt was delegated to Karekin Vartabed Srvantsdiants in 1878, who made two trips to Armenian vilayets in 1878 and 1879. However, in certain areas, Kurdish tribes that had taken by force the Armenian villages and would not allow him entry. Moreover, the Armenians probably minimized their number fearing of increased taxation, and parish records were deficient or non-existent. The 1878 attempt was a failure and was not published.
Various Armenian Patriarchate figures were presented, but one of those that seemed the most complete was published in La Question Arménienne à la lumière des documents by Marcel Léart (Krikor Zohrab). Zohrab states that there are 2,660,000 Armenians residing in Ottoman lands by referring to the 1882 Patriarchal population figure. It is said that the records were supposedly based on records of baptisms and deaths kept by the ecclesiastical officials. Those figures though excluded the regions where Armenian population was not considerable, as well as excluded the areas outside of the six vilayets.
The problem with such numbers, is that there have been no records on whether or not the statistics were really based on baptism and death certificates kept by the ecclesiastical officials. For this reason, Justin McCarthy and few other Western scholars as well as most Turkish specialists believe them to be fabrications. Just for comparison, the Patriarchate Statistics of Armenian's in the “Six Vilayets” known as Ottoman Armenia, there was a reported 1,018,000 Armenian's against 784,914 for the Ottoman figures.
Figures by the Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople
from February 1913 to August 1914:
figures were published in 1913. Armenian sources records for this statistic have more ground than the first one in that they are based on actual archival records. In 1992, Raymond H. Kevorkian and Paul B. Paboudjian have published a work which present “precision” to the last digit, for each Ottoman provinces from the Armenian archives. For the figure of the entire Ottoman population, those records indicate 1,914,620 closely matching with the Ottoman statistics for the Western part of the empire, but diverge in the Eastern zone, where the Ottoman statistics are suspected to have considerably undercounted the Armenian population. And even in some instances, the actual Ottoman counts after McCarthy's correction were higher in some regions than those statistics, indicating that those figures might have been possibly a serious records and might have under-counted Armenian's in some instances.
An example often referred by the critics, was Cuinet's statistics drawn from Turkish authority numbers and information that they provided him regarding the Vilayet of Aleppo (classified in those works as the sandjak of Marash). The number is an impossible 4,300. While only in the city of Marash the Catholic and Protestant Armenians were numbering 6008, and this without including the Gregorians.
Cuinet at the beginning of his work, cautioned the reader by declaring: "The science of statistics so worthy and interesting, not only still is not used in this country but even the authorities refuses, with a party line, to accept any investigation."
Regardless of what could have been considered as an indirect admission of under counting. Cuinet presented 840,000 for 1891-92, of what was called “Armenian Villayet” a figure higher than the one presented from Ottoman statistics.
The British official figures at the embassy relied upon careful investigations like those of Lynch. When comparing those figures with Ottoman figures, Zamir concludes: "the provinces of Van, Bitlis, Mamuretal-Aziz (Harput), Diyarbekir, Erzerum, and the independent district of Maras, where British figures are 62 percent higher (847,000) compared with 523,065.” For those reasons he was forced to conclude: “The understatement of the non-Moslem figures appears to be intentional."
Britannica itself takes the figure of 1,750,000 as "a reasonable representation of the Armenian population in Anatolia prior to 1915."
Another problem with the figures is that those numbers were drawn from a period of about 20 to 30 years, mostly from 1890 to 1915.
German official figures representing the Armenian population within the Empire were about 1.9 million to 2 million.
Toynbee settle on between 1.6 to 2.0 million, and states that the real number is probably closer to 2 million for Anatolia. Pushing the median slightly on the right side of 1.8 million.
Ludovic de Contenson, present the figure of 1,150,000 for Asiatic Turkey, and call them “statistics” without any sources. His numbers suggest that they might actually be the Ottoman census statistics, without correction.
Armenians in the Ottoman Empire
Armenians in the Ottoman Empire or Ottoman Armenians were ethnic Armenian people of the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Armenian Catholic Church or the Armenian Protestant Church who lived in the Ottoman Empire...
population size within the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
between 1914 and 1915 is a controversial topic. Most estimates by Western scholars range from 1.3 to 2.0 million. Establishing the size of this population is very important in determining an accurate estimation of Armenian losses between 1915 and 1923 during the Armenian Genocide
Armenian Genocide
The Armenian Genocide—also known as the Armenian Holocaust, the Armenian Massacres and, by Armenians, as the Great Crime—refers to the deliberate and systematic destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during and just after World War I...
and what followed as the Turkish War of Independence
Turkish War of Independence
The Turkish War of Independence was a war of independence waged by Turkish nationalists against the Allies, after the country was partitioned by the Allies following the Ottoman Empire's defeat in World War I...
.
This article presents some statistics of the Armenian population within the Ottoman Empire.
Ottoman statistics
While the Ottoman Empire had population records prior to the 1830s, it was only in 1831 that the Office of Population Registers fund (Ceride-i Nüfus Nezareti) was founded. To draw more accurate data, the Office decentralized in 1839. Registrars, inspectors, and population officials were appointed to the provinces and smaller administrative districts. They recorded births and deaths periodically and compared lists indicating the population in each district. These records were not a total count of population. Rather, they were based on what is known as “head of household”. Only the ages, occupation, and property of the male family members only were counted.In 1867 the Council of States
Turkish Council of State
The Turkish Council of State is the highest administrative court in the Republic of Turkey and is based in Ankara. Its role and tasks are prescribed by the Constitution of Turkey within the articles on the supreme courts....
took charge of drawing population tables, increasing the precision of population records. They introduced new measures of recording population counts in 1874. This led to the establishment of a General Population Administration, attached to the Ministry of Interior in 1881-1882. Somehow, these changes politicized the population counts.
Armenian population prior to 1878
In 1844 the Ottoman government recorded a total of 2.4 million Armenians within the Ottoman EmpireOttoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
. Abdolonyme Ubicini
Abdolonyme Ubicini
Jean-Henri-Abdolonyme Ubicini was a French historian and journalist, honorary member of the Romanian Academy....
, a French historian and journalist, was one of the first to publish the 1844 figure by adding that he considers it an underestimation of the total Ottoman Armenian population. Ubicini states:
A 20th century Turkish professor, İbrahim Hakkı Akyol, also considers the 1844 census as an underestimation of the total Ottoman population because the taxes to be set for each vilayet and kaza would be based on the census result, and the population wanted to avoid them. In 1867 the 2.4 million figure remains unchanged, and was used by Ottoman official Salaheddin Bey in a book published on the occasion of the International Exposition
Exposition Universelle (1867)
The Exposition Universelle of 1867 was a World Exposition held in Paris, France, in 1867.-Conception:In 1864, Emperor Napoleon III decreed that an international exposition should be held in Paris in 1867. A commission was appointed with Prince Jerome Napoleon as president, under whose direction...
in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. On the same occasion, an Ottoman Armenian official named Migirdich Bey Dadian gives a 3.4 million figure which the Ottoman government did not contest.
After the internationalization of the Armenian Question
Armenian Question
The term "Armenian Question" as used in European history, became common place among diplomatic circles and in the popular press after the Congress of Berlin; that in like Eastern Question, refers to powers of Europe's involvement to the Armenian subjects of the Ottoman Empire beginning with the...
, and the Treaty of Berlin
Congress of Berlin
The Congress of Berlin was a meeting of the European Great Powers' and the Ottoman Empire's leading statesmen in Berlin in 1878. In the wake of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78, the meeting's aim was to reorganize the countries of the Balkans...
that followed in 1878, the idea of a self governing Armenian nation became a possibility. Thus, census records of the Armenian population became important. The first record of the General Population Administration under Abdul Hamid
Abdul Hamid II
His Imperial Majesty, The Sultan Abdülhamid II, Emperor of the Ottomans, Caliph of the Faithful was the 34th sultan of the Ottoman Empire...
was half the figure in 1881-1882. The Ottoman Empire in 1877-78 lost Batumi
Batumi
Batumi is a seaside city on the Black Sea coast and capital of Adjara, an autonomous republic in southwest Georgia. Sometimes considered Georgia's second capital, with a population of 121,806 , Batumi serves as an important port and a commercial center. It is situated in a subtropical zone, rich in...
, Kars
Kars
Kars is a city in northeast Turkey and the capital of Kars Province. The population of the city is 73,826 as of 2010.-Etymology:As Chorzene, the town appears in Roman historiography as part of ancient Armenia...
and Ardahan
Ardahan Province
Ardahan Province is a province in the far north-east of Turkey, at the very end of the country, where Turkey borders with Georgia . The provincial capital is the city of Ardahan.- Geography :...
. The Armenian population statistics for those regions would have influenced the losses of Armenian population but can not account for the other million or more Armenians that are missing in the records of 1881-1882 under the reign of Sultan Hamid
Abdul Hamid II
His Imperial Majesty, The Sultan Abdülhamid II, Emperor of the Ottomans, Caliph of the Faithful was the 34th sultan of the Ottoman Empire...
.
Armenian population to 1905
From 1881-1882 to the 1905 census, there was a near constant increase in census statistics for the Armenian population.The Ottoman statistics had been used by an American demographer
Demography
Demography is the statistical study of human population. It can be a very general science that can be applied to any kind of dynamic human population, that is, one that changes over time or space...
and Ottoman expert, professor Justin McCarthy
Justin McCarthy (American historian)
Justin A. McCarthy is an American demographer, professor of history at the University of Louisville, in Louisville, Kentucky. He holds an honorary doctorate from Boğaziçi University, Turkey, and is a board member of the Institute of Turkish Studies...
who mostly relied on those census figures to determine the Armenian population within the Ottoman Empire. McCarthy's records are mostly based on those of 1911-1912, 1905 and 1895-1896. By using the Ottoman population records and applying the population stability theory (using the men half pyramid) he provided the figure of 1,698,301.
While McCarthy numbers are the result of extensive studies, they have been highly contested by many specialists. Some of them, like Frédéric Paulin, have severely criticized McCarthy's methodology
Methodology
Methodology is generally a guideline for solving a problem, with specificcomponents such as phases, tasks, methods, techniques and tools . It can be defined also as follows:...
and suggested that it is flawed. Hilmar Kaiser another specialist has made similar claims, as have professor Vahakn N. Dadrian and professor Levon Marashlian.
The critics not only question McCarthy's methodology and resulting calculations, but also his primary sources, the Ottoman censuses. They point out that there was no official statistic census in 1912; rather those numbers were based on the records of 1905 which were conducted during the reign of Sultan Hamid.
Censuses of Sultan Hamid
The fact that the 1912 records are based on a census that was conducted under the Hamidian regime, according to the critics, makes it dubious. Turkish records as also suggest that Sultan Hamid might have intentionally undercounted the Armenian population.The Turkish author Kâzım Kadri writes, “During the reign of Abdul Hamid we lowered the population figures of the Armenians...” He adds, “By the order of Abdul Hamid the number of the Armenians deliberately had been put in low figures.”
Other evidence suggests such undercounts cut in half the actual Armenian population. In the district of Mus
Mus
-Computing:* Mus, a file extension used by Finale * MUS, the internal music format used in Doom -Three-letter acronyms:* Mitsubishi UFJ Securities * MUS, the NATO country code for Mauritius...
(compromising Mus plain, Sassoun, and the counties of Mus) for example, the Armenian official in charge of the census, Garabed Potigian, presented the official figures as 225,000 Armenians and 55,000 Turks. Upon the insistence of his Turkish superiors he was forced to reduce the Armenian population to 105,000 and increase the Turkish population to 95,000. Lynch himself report similar incidences: “Pursuing our way, we meet an Armenian priest—a young, broad-shouldered, open-faced man. He seems inclined to speak, so we ask him how many churches there may be in Mush(Mus). He answers, seven; but the commissary had said four. A soldier addresses him in Kurdish; the poor fellow turns pale, and remarks that he was mistaken in saying seven; there cannot be more than four ...Such are a few of our experiences during our short sojourn at Mush.”
Sultan Hamid apparently considered the under evaluation presented to him of 900,000 as exaggeration.
The German chief of staff of the Ottoman Third Army, Colonel Felix Guse, complained that "The Turks knew only poorly their country, on top of that the possibility of getting reliable statistical figures was out of the question.
Fa'iz El-Ghusein, the Kaimakam of Kharpout, wrote in his book, that according to the Ottoman official statistics there were about 1.9 million Armenian's in the Ottoman Empire.
Another indication that other statistics might have existed is that Polybius in his book published in 1919, refer to a said “Ottoman Official Census of 1910.” But Justin McCarthy has questioned the information and considered it fabrication.
The Turkish historian Dr. Secil Akgun, claimed: “The Ottomans do not have a definite number. That is, we have in our hands contradictory numbers regarding the Armenian population within the borders of the Ottoman Empire. I would think that Basmacıyan gives the most accurate number. This is to be between two and three million.”
Other census problems
Another problem arises, and it is the fact that the Ottoman census statistics have maintained constant increase for the Armenian population from the period where between 1894–1897, an estimated 100,000 to 300,000 Armenians lost their lives during the Hamidian massacresHamidian massacres
The Hamidian massacres , also referred to as the Armenian Massacres of 1894–1896, refers to the massacring of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire, with estimates of the dead ranging from anywhere between 80,000 to 300,000, and at least 50,000 orphans as a result...
. While the minimum in the range represent the Armenian increases of population over years, the 1905 census hasn't shown any anomaly of Armenian increases, which suggest that there might have been a fixed quota of Armenian population, and that regardless of the census, there were much more Armenians within the Empire.
Another element that add, is that many Armenians, like many Jews and Christians, were considered as foreigners, because they had foreign nationalities or enjoyed the protection of foreign consulates and those for were not counted in those census statistics.
To this, add that Armenians were as well purposely undercounting themselves to escape the military tax by not registering.
The result of all those factors, is that the Armenian population censuses, according to the specialists that criticize them, is an important under counting of the Armenian population, that could have gone as far as misrepresenting it by half. Lynch critic itself regarding the inclusion of all the Muslims together, when there were probably Armenians in the count, is supported by the Ottoman census, that contain an anomaly that in some region like Van
Van Province
Van Province is a province in eastern Turkey, between Lake Van and the Iranian border. It is 19,069 km2 in area and had a population of 1,035,418 at the end of 2010....
, the Muslim population from one census to another jumped to about 50%, suggesting that numbers for the Ottoman government could have been used as political tool, and went as far as transferring Armenians in the table as Muslim.
In short, even though the Ottoman records were official data, and that few Western specialists and most Turkish specialists rely on them, most Western scholars ignore this data, because according to them it is unreliable.
Official Ottoman Census
There were 1,219,323 Armenians in the Subdivisions of the Ottoman EmpireOttoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
according to the last Ottoman census 1914
| Province(Vilâyets) | Muslim Men/Women Population | Armenian Men/Women Population | Province(Vilâyets) | Muslim Men/Women Population | Armenian Men/Women Population |
| İstanbul Istanbul Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and... |
560.434 | 84.093 | Sivas | 939.735 | 151.674 |
| Edirne Edirne Edirne is a city in Eastern Thrace, the northwestern part of Turkey, close to the borders with Greece and Bulgaria. Edirne served as the capital city of the Ottoman Empire from 1365 to 1453, before Constantinople became the empire's new capital. At present, Edirne is the capital of the Edirne... |
325.883 | 19.883 | Niğde Nigde Niğde is a small city and the capital of Niğde Province in the Central Anatolia region of Turkey. The population is 109,724 per the 2010 statistics... |
227.100 | 5.705 |
| Karesi | 359.804 | 8.604 | Antalya Antalya Antalya is a city on the Mediterranean coast of southwestern Turkey. With a population 1,001,318 as of 2010. It is the eighth most populous city in Turkey and country's biggest international sea resort.- History :... |
235.762 | 630 |
| İzmit Izmit İzmit is a city in Turkey, administrative center of Kocaeli Province as well as the Kocaeli Metropolitan Municipality. It is located at the Gulf of İzmit in the Sea of Marmara, about east of Istanbul, on the northwestern part of Anatolia. The city center has a population of 294.875... |
126.859 | 57.786 | Canik Samsun Samsun is a city of about half a million people on the north coast of Turkey. It is the provincial capital of Samsun Province and a major Black Sea port.-Name:... |
265.950 | 28.576 |
| Çatalca Çatalca Çatalca is a city and a rural district in Istanbul, Turkey. It is in Thrace, on the ridge between the Marmara and the Black Sea. Most people living in Çatalca are either farmers or those visiting vacation homes. Many families from Istanbul come to Çatalca during weekends to hike in the forests or... |
20.048 | 842 | Menteşe | 188.916 | 12 |
| Kale-i sultaniye Çanakkale Çanakkale is a town and seaport in Turkey, in Çanakkale Province, on the southern coast of the Dardanelles at their narrowest point. The population of the town is 106,116 . The mayor is Ülgür Gökhan .... |
149.903 | 2.541 | Aydın Aydin Aydın is a city in and the seat of Aydın Province in Turkey's Aegean Region. The city is located at the heart of the lower valley of Büyük Menderes River at a commanding position for the region extending from the uplands of the valley down to the seacoast... |
1.249.067 | 20.766 |
| Hüdavendigâr Manisa Manisa is a large city in Turkey's Aegean Region and the administrative seat of Manisa Province.Modern Manisa is a booming center of industry and services, advantaged by its closeness to the international port city and the regional metropolitan center of İzmir and by its fertile hinterland rich in... |
276.737 | 61.191 | Bolu | 399.281 | 2.972 |
| Kütahya Kütahya Kütahya is a city in western Turkey with 212,444 inhabitants , lying on the Porsuk river, at 969 metres above sea level. It is the capital of Kütahya Province, inhabited by some 517 804 people... and Eskişehir Eskisehir Eskişehir is a city in northwestern Turkey and the capital of the Eskişehir Province. According to the 2009 census, the population of the city is 631,905. The city is located on the banks of the Porsuk River, 792 m above sea level, where it overlooks the fertile Phrygian Valley. In the nearby... |
387.231 | 9.058 | Kastamonu Kastamonu Kastamonu is the capital district of the Kastamonu Province, Turkey. According to the 2000 census, population of the district is 102,059 of which 64,606 live in the urban center of Kastamonu. The district covers an area of , and the town lies at an elevation of... |
737.302 | 8.959 |
| Karahisarısahib | 277.659 | 7.448 | Trabzon Trabzon Trabzon is a city on the Black Sea coast of north-eastern Turkey and the capital of Trabzon Province. Trabzon, located on the historical Silk Road, became a melting pot of religions, languages and culture for centuries and a trade gateway to Iran in the southeast and the Caucasus to the northeast... |
921.128 | 40.237 |
| Konya Konya Konya is a city in the Central Anatolia Region of Turkey. The metropolitan area in the entire Konya Province had a population of 1,036,027 as of 2010, making the city seventh most populous in Turkey.-Etymology:... |
750.712 | 13.225 | Erzurum Erzurum Erzurum is a city in Turkey. It is the largest city, the capital of Erzurum Province. The city is situated 1757 meters above sea level. Erzurum had a population of 361,235 in the 2000 census. .Erzurum, known as "The Rock" in NATO code, served as NATO's southeastern-most air force post during the... |
673.297 | 136.618 |
| Ankara Ankara Ankara is the capital of Turkey and the country's second largest city after Istanbul. The city has a mean elevation of , and as of 2010 the metropolitan area in the entire Ankara Province had a population of 4.4 million.... |
933.980 | 58.254 | Suriye | 777.603 | 3.245 |
| Adana Adana Adana is a city in southern Turkey and a major agricultural and commercial center. The city is situated on the Seyhan River, 30 kilometres inland from the Mediterranean, in south-central Anatolia... |
443.937 | 58.027 | Beyrut Beirut Beirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon, with a population ranging from 1 million to more than 2 million . Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coastline, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport, and also forms the Beirut Metropolitan... |
642.816 | 5.233 |
| Haleb | 692.699 | 86.085 | Harput Elazig Elâzığ is a city in Eastern Anatolia, Turkey and the seat of Elâzığ Province. It has a population of331,479 according to the 2010 census, and the plain on which the city extends has an altitude of 1067 metres.... |
446.376 | 87.862 |
| Kayseri Kayseri Kayseri is a large and industrialized city in Central Anatolia, Turkey. It is the seat of Kayseri Province. The city of Kayseri, as defined by the boundaries of Kayseri Metropolitan Municipality, is structurally composed of five metropolitan districts, the two core districts of Kocasinan and... |
184.292 | 52.192 | Van Van A van is a kind of vehicle used for transporting goods or groups of people.In British English usage, it can be either specially designed or based on a saloon or sedan car, the latter type often including derivatives with open backs... |
179.380 | 67.792 |
| Jerusalem | 266.044 | 3.043 | Bitlis Bitlis Bitlis is a town in eastern Turkey and the capital of Bitlis Province. The town is located at an elevation of 1,400 metres, 15 km from Lake Van, in the steep-sided valley of the Bitlis River, a tributary of the Tigris. The local economy is mainly based on agricultural products which include... |
309.999 | 119.132 |
| Zor | 65.770 | 283 | Total | 14.155.755**(Turks and other Muslims) | 1.219.323* (Armenians) |
| Urfa | 141.151 | 17.352 | |||
Armenian Patriarchate figures
The Armenian National Constitution of 1863 granted by the Ottoman Sultan to the Ottoman Armenians in 1863 authorized the Armenian Patriarchate of ConstantinopleArmenian Patriarchate of Constantinople
The Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople , one of the smallest Patriarchates of the Oriental Orthodox Church but one that has exerted a very significant political role and today still exercises a spiritual authority....
to collect population figures of all Armenians in the Empire. A first attempt was delegated to Karekin Vartabed Srvantsdiants in 1878, who made two trips to Armenian vilayets in 1878 and 1879. However, in certain areas, Kurdish tribes that had taken by force the Armenian villages and would not allow him entry. Moreover, the Armenians probably minimized their number fearing of increased taxation, and parish records were deficient or non-existent. The 1878 attempt was a failure and was not published.
Various Armenian Patriarchate figures were presented, but one of those that seemed the most complete was published in La Question Arménienne à la lumière des documents by Marcel Léart (Krikor Zohrab). Zohrab states that there are 2,660,000 Armenians residing in Ottoman lands by referring to the 1882 Patriarchal population figure. It is said that the records were supposedly based on records of baptisms and deaths kept by the ecclesiastical officials. Those figures though excluded the regions where Armenian population was not considerable, as well as excluded the areas outside of the six vilayets.
The problem with such numbers, is that there have been no records on whether or not the statistics were really based on baptism and death certificates kept by the ecclesiastical officials. For this reason, Justin McCarthy and few other Western scholars as well as most Turkish specialists believe them to be fabrications. Just for comparison, the Patriarchate Statistics of Armenian's in the “Six Vilayets” known as Ottoman Armenia, there was a reported 1,018,000 Armenian's against 784,914 for the Ottoman figures.
Figures by the Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople
Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople
The Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople also known as Armenian Patriarch of Istanbul is today head of The Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople , one of the smallest Patriarchates of the Oriental Orthodox Church but one that has exerted a very significant political role and today still exercises...
from February 1913 to August 1914:
| Vilayet | Armenian Armenians Armenian people or Armenians are a nation and ethnic group native to the Armenian Highland.The largest concentration is in Armenia having a nearly-homogeneous population with 97.9% or 3,145,354 being ethnic Armenian.... population |
|---|---|
| Bitlis Vilayet Bitlis Vilayet Bitlis Vilayet was one of the Six vilayets of the Ottoman Empire. Before the Russo-Turkish War it had been part of the Erzurum Vilayet, it was then made a separate vilayet by the Porte.... |
218,404 |
| Sivas Vilayet | 204,472 |
| Erzurum Vilayet | 202,391 |
| Aleppo Vilayet | 189,565 |
| Istanbul Istanbul Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and... |
163,670 |
| Ankara Vilayet | 135,869 |
| Mamuretülaziz Vilayet | 124,289 |
| Adana Vilayet Adana Vilayet The Vilayet of Adana was a vilayet of the Ottoman Empire in the south-east of Asia Minor, which included the ancient Cilicia.At the beginning of the 20th century it reportedly had an area of , while the preliminary results of the first Ottoman census of 1885 gave the population as 402,439... |
119,414 |
| Bursa Vilayet | 118,992 |
| Van Vilayet | 110,897 |
| Diyâr-ı Bekr Vilayet | 106,867 |
| Trebizond Vilayet | 73,395 |
| İzmit Vilayet | 61,675 |
| Edirne Vilayet | 30,316 |
| Aidin Vilayet | 21,145 |
| Konya Vilayet | 20,738 |
| Kastamonu Vilayet Kastamonu Vilayet The Vilayet of Kastamonu was a vilayet of the Ottoman Empire. At the beginning of the 20th century it reportedly had an area of , while the preliminary results of the first Ottoman census of 1885 gave the population as 1,009,460... |
13,461 |
| TOTAL | 1,914,620 |
Reanalysis of Armenian Patriarchate figures
Another set of Armenian Patriarchate figuresArmenian Patriarch of Constantinople
The Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople also known as Armenian Patriarch of Istanbul is today head of The Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople , one of the smallest Patriarchates of the Oriental Orthodox Church but one that has exerted a very significant political role and today still exercises...
figures were published in 1913. Armenian sources records for this statistic have more ground than the first one in that they are based on actual archival records. In 1992, Raymond H. Kevorkian and Paul B. Paboudjian have published a work which present “precision” to the last digit, for each Ottoman provinces from the Armenian archives. For the figure of the entire Ottoman population, those records indicate 1,914,620 closely matching with the Ottoman statistics for the Western part of the empire, but diverge in the Eastern zone, where the Ottoman statistics are suspected to have considerably undercounted the Armenian population. And even in some instances, the actual Ottoman counts after McCarthy's correction were higher in some regions than those statistics, indicating that those figures might have been possibly a serious records and might have under-counted Armenian's in some instances.
Western records
There have been various Western records representing the Armenian population, but demographic figures representing the total Armenian population within the Ottoman Empire were few.Number of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire by different sources
The list of different numbers of Armenians living in the ottoman Empire by Western sources.| According to | Date | Number of Armenians |
|---|---|---|
| M.Zarceshi (French Counsul at Van) | 1,300,000 | |
| Francis de Pressence | 1895 | 1,260,000 |
| Torumnekize | 1900 | 1,300,000 |
| Lynch | 1901 | 1,158,484 |
| Ottoman census | 1905 | 1,294,851 |
| British Blue Book | 1912 | 1,056,000 |
| L.D. Conterson | 1913 | 1,400,000 |
| French Yellow Book | 1,475,000 | |
| Report of "French Armenian" committee | March 1, 1914 | 1,280,000 542,421 (East Anatolia) |
| Armenian Patriarchate Ormanian | 1,579,000 | |
| Johannes Lepsius Johannes Lepsius Johannes Lepsius was a German Protestant missionary, Orientalist, and humanist with a special interest in trying to prevent the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire. He initially studied mathematics and philosophy in Munich and a PhD in 1180 with an already award-winning work... |
1,600,000 | |
| Krokor-Zohrab (estimate of Patriarchate) | 2,560,000+ | |
| Armenian historian K.S. Basmachian | 2,380,000+ | |
| By Armenian delegation given at the Paris Peace Conference Paris Peace Conference, 1919 The Paris Peace Conference was the meeting of the Allied victors following the end of World War I to set the peace terms for the defeated Central Powers following the armistices of 1918. It took place in Paris in 1919 and involved diplomats from more than 32 countries and nationalities... |
1919 | 2,250,000+ |
| By Eleftherios Venizelos Eleftherios Venizelos Eleftherios Venizelos was an eminent Greek revolutionary, a prominent and illustrious statesman as well as a charismatic leader in the early 20th century. Elected several times as Prime Minister of Greece and served from 1910 to 1920 and from 1928 to 1932... at the Paris Peace Conference Paris Peace Conference, 1919 The Paris Peace Conference was the meeting of the Allied victors following the end of World War I to set the peace terms for the defeated Central Powers following the armistices of 1918. It took place in Paris in 1919 and involved diplomats from more than 32 countries and nationalities... (pre. World War I, 1914) |
December 30, 1918 | 2,100,000 1,260,000+ (Living in 1918) |
| Letter by Boghos Nubar Boghos Nubar Boghos Nubar also known as Boghos Nubar Pasha was a Chairman of the Armenian National Assembly, liberal, the son of Egyptian Prime Minister Nubar Pasha and the founder, alongside ten other Armenian national movement leaders, of the Armenian General Benevolent Union on April 15, 1905.He was the... to French Ministry |
December 11, 1918 | 700,000+ 390,000 (Alive in Caucasus, Persia, Syria, Iraq) |
| National Geographic, page 329 | October 1915 | 2,000,000 (All area including Persia, Russia) |
| Grabill, page 51 | 1,800,000-2,000,000 (All over the empire) | |
| New York Times | October 22, 1915 | 1,200,000 |
| Zurcher, page 119-120 "Turkey" | 1,500,000 | |
| Encyclopædia Britannica Encyclopædia Britannica The Encyclopædia Britannica , published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia that is available in print, as a DVD, and on the Internet. It is written and continuously updated by about 100 full-time editors and more than 4,000 expert... |
1914 | 1,500,000 |
| National Geographic page 61 | July 1918 | 2,000,0000 (Total Empire population 18,000,000) |
| Katchaawuni H. - living in 1920 (after emigration and loses) nearly | 1,000,000 | |
| Armenian historian Yervand Lalayan Yervand Lalayan Yervan Lalayan , ethnographer, archeologist, folklorist. He was also the founder and the first director of the History Museum of Armenia from 1919 to 1927.... - detailed, living in Armenia only in 1918 |
885,000 690,500 (in Armenia only in 1920) 195,000 (deaths in Armenia under the Dashnak rule) |
|
| Armenian historian Kevork Aslan | 1,800,000 | |
| Revue de Paris Revue de Paris Revue de Paris was a French literary magazine founded in 1829 by Louis Desiré Veron.... |
1,300,000 | |
| Turkish census | 1927 | 123,602 |
French
Vital Cuinet was a French geographer that was charged to survey areas and count their population. His figures were also used to establish the ability of the Ottoman Empire to pay its debts, Cuinet eager to get precise numbers was finally forced to conclude that it was not possible to get them, he gives two main reasons for this.- The limitations imposed by the Turkish authorities made his researches inconclusive.
- Because of the lack of control of the Turkish authorities for farther provinces, it was impossible for him to complete his work.
An example often referred by the critics, was Cuinet's statistics drawn from Turkish authority numbers and information that they provided him regarding the Vilayet of Aleppo (classified in those works as the sandjak of Marash). The number is an impossible 4,300. While only in the city of Marash the Catholic and Protestant Armenians were numbering 6008, and this without including the Gregorians.
Cuinet at the beginning of his work, cautioned the reader by declaring: "The science of statistics so worthy and interesting, not only still is not used in this country but even the authorities refuses, with a party line, to accept any investigation."
Regardless of what could have been considered as an indirect admission of under counting. Cuinet presented 840,000 for 1891-92, of what was called “Armenian Villayet” a figure higher than the one presented from Ottoman statistics.
British
Henry Finnis Bloss Lynch, a British geographer-ethnographer, in completing his own studies, came up with 1,058,000 for the beginning of 1890s for Turkish Armenia. Lynch indicated, like Cuinet, that there was a seemly deliberate Ottoman policy of under counting. Nonetheless, Lynch figures were well circulated, but he cautioned the reader regarding the misleading character of the term “Muslim” since many Armenians converted and were counted as Muslim, while they were still practicing Armenian Christians.The British official figures at the embassy relied upon careful investigations like those of Lynch. When comparing those figures with Ottoman figures, Zamir concludes: "the provinces of Van, Bitlis, Mamuretal-Aziz (Harput), Diyarbekir, Erzerum, and the independent district of Maras, where British figures are 62 percent higher (847,000) compared with 523,065.” For those reasons he was forced to conclude: “The understatement of the non-Moslem figures appears to be intentional."
Britannica itself takes the figure of 1,750,000 as "a reasonable representation of the Armenian population in Anatolia prior to 1915."
German
The German professor, Herman Wambery presented as figures for Turkish Armenia: 1,130,000 in 1896.American
Samuel Cox at the American Embassy in Istanbul from 1880 to 1886, estimated the Armenian population within the empire to be of 2,4 million.Problems
The problem with such figures is that they do not cover the same regions. For instance, many time “Anatolia” is equalled with the Ottoman empire. Other times there are partial statistics representing one region, like Turkish Armenia, Ottoman Armenia, Asiatic Turkey, Anatolia, Ottoman Empire, 6 Armenian Villeyets, 9 Armenian Villeyets etc.Another problem with the figures is that those numbers were drawn from a period of about 20 to 30 years, mostly from 1890 to 1915.
German official figures representing the Armenian population within the Empire were about 1.9 million to 2 million.
Toynbee settle on between 1.6 to 2.0 million, and states that the real number is probably closer to 2 million for Anatolia. Pushing the median slightly on the right side of 1.8 million.
Ludovic de Contenson, present the figure of 1,150,000 for Asiatic Turkey, and call them “statistics” without any sources. His numbers suggest that they might actually be the Ottoman census statistics, without correction.
Conclusion of Western scholars
Most (whatever this may mean) Western scholars believe the totality of the Armenian population within the Empire prior to 1915 to be between 1.8 and 2.1 million.Armenians in the Ottoman Empire by vilayets
Information about the Armenian population (1914, 1922), settlements, churches and schools| Vilayets/regions | Settlements | Churches | Schools Armenian education in the Ottoman Empire Beginning with the 1863 education has been offered to the whole people, and so far as funds permit is absolutely free for all. All Armenian education is under the direction of lay committees. During this period in Russian Armenia the association of the schools with the Church is rather closer, but... |
|---|---|---|---|
| Erzurum Vilayet | 425 | 482 | 322 |
| Van Vilayet | 450 | 537 | 192 |
| Diyâr-ı Bekr Vilayet | 249 | 158 | 122 |
| Mamuretülaziz Vilayet | 279 | 307 | 204 |
| Bitlis Vilayet Bitlis Vilayet Bitlis Vilayet was one of the Six vilayets of the Ottoman Empire. Before the Russo-Turkish War it had been part of the Erzurum Vilayet, it was then made a separate vilayet by the Porte.... |
618 | 671 | 207 |
| Sivas Vilayet | 241 | 219 | 204 |
| Trebizond Vilayet | 118 | 109 | 190 |
| Western Anatolia Anatolia Anatolia is a geographic and historical term denoting the westernmost protrusion of Asia, comprising the majority of the Republic of Turkey... |
237 | 281 | 300 |
| Cilicia Cilicia In antiquity, Cilicia was the south coastal region of Asia Minor, south of the central Anatolian plateau. It existed as a political entity from Hittite times into the Byzantine empire... and Northern Syria |
187 | 537 | 176 |
| European Turkey East Thrace East Thrace or Eastern Thrace , also known as Turkish Thrace, is the part of the modern republic of Turkey that is geographically part of Europe, all in the eastern part of the historical region of Thrace; most of Turkey is in Anatolia, also known as Asia Minor. Turkish Thrace is also called... |
58 | 67 | 79 |
| Ottoman Empire Ottoman Empire The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries... |
2,925 | 3,368 | 1,996 |
See also
- Armenian GenocideArmenian GenocideThe Armenian Genocide—also known as the Armenian Holocaust, the Armenian Massacres and, by Armenians, as the Great Crime—refers to the deliberate and systematic destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during and just after World War I...
- Ottoman Armenian casualtiesOttoman Armenian casualtiesOttoman Armenian casualties refers to the number of deaths of Ottoman Armenian people between 1914 to 1923. The Republic of Armenia and several other nations recognize the deaths to have occurred during an Armenian Genocide.Most estimates of related Armenian deaths between 1915 to 1918 range from...
- Armenians in the Ottoman EmpireArmenians in the Ottoman EmpireArmenians in the Ottoman Empire or Ottoman Armenians were ethnic Armenian people of the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Armenian Catholic Church or the Armenian Protestant Church who lived in the Ottoman Empire...
- Armenians in TurkeyArmenians in TurkeyArmenians in Turkey have an estimated population of 40,000 to 70,000 . Most are concentrated around Istanbul. The Armenians support their own newspapers and schools...