What Was The Demographic Data Before And After Relocation?

The Armenian committee members always distort and exaggerate the facts about Armenian population before and after the Relocation Implementation. They try to create a basis for their false claims by using war records, official records, church statistics and, reports of foreign missionaries. Some of numbers that is given about the Armenian population in the Ottoman territories are sometimes exceed to the total Armenian population of the Diaspora.

Armenian Population before the Relocation:

There are many different claims about Armenian population in the Ottoman territories; some figures are as follow:


1.British Annual Register 1917 1.056.000 (1)
2.Patriarch Ormanyan 1.579.000 (2)
3.The Armenian historian Kevork Aslan 1.800.000 (3) (In "Armenia and Armenians", Aslan states the Armenian population in Anatolia 920.000, in Clicia (Adana, Sis, Maras) 180.000, in the other Ottoman territories 700.000, total 1.800.000)
4.German Priest Johannes Lepsius 1.600.000 (4)
5.Cuinet 1.045.018 (5)
6.The French Yellow Book 1.475.011 (6)
7.The Armenian historian Basmajian 2.280.000 (7)
8.Patriarch Nerses Varjabedyan 1.150.000 (8)

Official Ottoman census statistics are as follows:
The Ottoman Directory of Statistics was founded in 1892 The first director of the branch was Nuri Bey. Between 1892-1897 a Jewish Ottoman, Fethi Franco was appointed for the duty. From 1897 until 1903, an Armenian director was in charge, called Migirdic Shabanyan. Later, Mr. Robert an American was appointed (1903-1908). Between, 1908-1914 Mehmet Behic was the general director. (9)

As it is seen, in a very chaotic period when the Ottoman government was facing with the Armenian Issue on the international arena, the Ottoman Statistics were under the control of foreigners. At this point, the Ottoman statistics should be considered as the most objective documents about the Armenian population living in Ottoman territories.

* Ottoman census statistics for 1893 1.001.465
* Ottoman census statistics for 1906 1.120.748
* Ottoman census statistics for 1914 1.221.850 (10)

An evaluation of the three sources clarifies that, during the First World War, the Armenian population in the Ottoman territories was approximately 1.250.000.

REFERENCE: Halacoglu, Prof. Dr. Yusuf-; Ermeni Tehcirine Dair Gercekler (1915), TTK Yayini, Ankara 2001.


FOOTNOTES
1) Annual Record of Britannica, 1917
2) Uras, Esat, Tarihte Ermeniler ve Ermeni Meselesi, Istanbul 1987
3) Aslan, Kevork, Ermenistan ve Ermeniler, Istanbul 1914.
4) Uras, Esat, a.g.e.
5) Uras, Esat, a.g.e.
6) 1893-1897 Ermeni Isleri, Paris, 1897 Uras, Esat, a.g.e.
7) Uras, Esat, a.g.e.
8) Uras, Esat, a.g.e.
9) Mazici, Nursen, Belgelerle Uluslar arasi Rekabette Ermeni Sorunu, Istanbul 1987.
10) see. Karpat, Kemal, H. Ottoman Population 1830-1914 Demographic and Social Characteristic, The University Of Wisconsin Press, 1985 London.