The Ottoman Armenian population varied throughout history. The number of Armenians within the empire between 1914 and 1915 is a controversial topic. Most historians estimate the Armenian population in 1914 range from 1.5 to 2 million. According to Britannica prior to 1915 and Samuel Cox, American Embassy in Istanbul from 1880-1886, it was 1.75 million and 2.4 million, respectively.
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.
Classic Period
Values based on taxation data 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.
The official data derived from extending the taxation values to the total population. Because of the use of taxation data to infer population size, detailed data for numerous Ottoman urban centers - towns with more than 5,000 inhabitants - is accurate. This data was collaborated with data on wages and prices. Another source was used for the numbers of landlords of households in the Ottoman Empire – every household was assumed to have 5 residents.Behar, Cem, ed. 1996. Osmanlı Đmparatorluğu'nun ve Türkiye'nin nüfusu, 1500-1927. Ankara: T.C. Basbakanlık Devlet Đstatistik Enstitüsü = State Institute of Statistics Prime Ministry Republic of Turkey.
Abdolonyme Ubicini (1844) In 1844, the Ottoman government recorded a total of 2.4 million Armenians. 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. The Armenians inhabiting Ottoman Empire in Europe are scarcely four hundred thousand, of which more than half reside in Constantinople, the others are scattered through Thrace and Bulgaria. On the other hand, Turkey in Asia contains not less than two million Armenians, the majority of whom still inhabit the ancient territory of their forefathers in the neighborhood of Mount Ararat; the three eyalets of Erzeroum, Diarbekir and Kurdistan contain many villages peopled entirely by Armenians, and in these provinces, notwithstanding frequent migrations, the Armenians preserve a numerical superiority over the Turkish and Turkoman races.
Ubicini states:
A 20th-century Turkish professor, İbrahim Hakkı Akyol, also considers the 1844 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 figure of 3.4 million, which the Ottoman government did not contest.
Karekin Vartabed Srvantsdiants (1878–79) 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 sultan Abdul Hamid was half the figure in 1881–82. The Ottoman Empire lost Batumi, Kars and Ardahan in 1877–78. 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 1881–82 under the reign of Hamid.
The Armenian National Constitution of 1863 granted by the Ottoman Sultan to the Ottoman Armenians in 1863 authorized the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople 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. The 1878 attempt was a failure and was not published.
Samuel Cox (1880–86) 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.Samuel Cox, Diversions of a Diplomat in Turkey, New York, 1893
1893–96 Ottoman Census statistics
The first official census (1881–93) took 10 years to finish. In 1893, the results were compiled and presented. This census is the first modern, general and standardized census accomplished not for taxation nor for military purposes, but to acquire demographic data. The population was divided into ethno-religious and gender characteristics. Numbers of both male and female subjects are given in ethno-religious categories including Muslims, Greeks, Armenians, Bulgarians, Catholics, Jews, Protestants, Latins, Syriacs and Gypsies.
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.
Official Values (published 1897) Ottoman Census ValuesAdministrative UnitTotal PopArmenian Pop% to TotalVan 132,007 55,051 41.70%Bitlis 338,642 108,050 31.91%Izmit 228,443 44,953 19.68%Erzurum 637,015 120,147 18.86%Dersaadet 903,482 166,185 18.39%Mamüratülaziz 466,579 83,394 17.87%Diyarbakir 414,657 60,175 14.51%Sivas 980,876 129,085 13.16%Adana 398,764 36,695 9.20%Halep 819,238 70,663 8.63%Ankara 1,018,744 81,437 7.99%Hüdavendigar 1,454,294 70,262 4.83%Trabzon 1,164,595 49,782 4.27%Sehremanati Mülhakati 88,306 3,074 3.48%Edirne 985,962 18,458 1.87%Çatalca 61,001 979 1.60%Biga 143,904 1,842 1.28%Konya 1,022,834 10,972 1.07%Aydin 1,478,424 15,229 1.03%Zor 51,270 474 0.92%Kastamonu 968,884 6,652 0.69%Kudüs 258,860 1,610 0.62%Beyrut 620,763 2,921 0.47%Suriye 551,135 1,478 0.27%Selanik 1,038,953 51 0.00%Cezayir-i Bahri Sefid 286,736 10 0.00%Manastir 711,466 22 0.00% 1,139,651
Vital Cuinet (1896)
Vital Cuinet was a French geographer who 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 Ottoman 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 6,008, 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.For the entire Cuinet account see: Vital Cuinet, La Turquie d'Asie : géographie administrative, statistique, descriptive et raisonée de chaque province de l'Asie-Mineure, 4 vols., Paris, 1890-95. See also a useful description and critic of Cuinets figures by Sarkis Y. Karayan, Vital Cuinet’s La Turquie d’Asie: A Critical Evaluation of Cuinet’s Information about Armenians, Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies, Volume 11, 2000
La Turquie d'Asie: géographie administrative, statistique, Volume 4 Admin-units Sub-units as listed by Cuinet PopulationAdana Vilayetsanjaks of Icel (Mersin) Adana Kozan Osmaniye97,450Aleppo VilayetHaleb 37,999Ankara Vilayet sanjaks of Ankara Kırşehir Yozgat Kayseri94,298Bitlis Vilayet sanjaks of Muş Genç Siirt131,300Bursa Vilayet sanjaks of Balıkesir Bursa Erdogrul Kütahya Afyon88,991Diyâr-ı Bekr Vilayet sanjak of Diyarbakır and the mutasarrifate of Zor67,718Erzurum Vilayet 134,967İzmir Vilayet sanjaks of Manisa İzmir Aydın Denizli Mentese15,105İzmit 48,655Kastamonu Vilayet sanjaks of Bolu Çankırı Kastamonu Sinop 2,647Konya Vilayet sanjaks of Burdur Hamid abad Atalya Konya Nigde0Mamure-ul-Azil Vilayet 79,128Sivas Vilayet sanjaks of Sivas Tokat Amasya Şebinkarahisar170,433Trebizond Vilayet sanjaks of Samsun Trabzon Gümüşhane Lazistan47,20Van Vilayet sanjaks of Van Hakkari79,9981,095,889
Henry Finnis Bloss Lynch (1901) 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.For his accounts see H.F.B. Lynch, Armenia. Travels and Studies, Vol. 2, Beirut, Khayats, 1965, or the previous version published in 1901
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."Meir Zamir, Population Statistics of the Ottoman Empire in 1914 and 1919, Middle Eastern Studies 17, 1981, p.81
Britannica itself takes the figure of 1,750,000 as "a reasonable representation of the Armenian population in Anatolia prior to 1915."
1905–06 Ottoman Census statistics
Istatistik-i Umumi Idaresi conducted a new census survey for which field work lasted two years (1905–06). This survey's complete documentation was not published. Results of regional studies on this data were published later, which were sorted by their publication date. Included in the publication and subsequent ones was the Ottoman Empire's population as of 1911, 1912 and 1914. The substantial archival documentation on the census has been used in many modern studies and international publications. After 1906 the Ottoman Empire began to disband and a chain of violent wars such as the Italo-Turkish War, Balkan Wars and World War I drastically changed the region, its borders, and its demographics.
Official Population Statistics (published 1914)