Census in the Ottoman Empire

Last updated

The Ottomans, rulers of Ottoman Empire, did develop a reasonably efficient system for counting the empire's population only a quarter century after census procedures were introduced in the United States of America , [lower-alpha 1] Great Britain , [lower-alpha 2] and France. [1] Four general censuses were held in the Ottoman Empire. These were 1831 census, 1881–82 census, 1905–06 census, and 1914 census. There were many special census, which Istanbul (Capital) is well known. There is considerable evidence that the census was taken throughout the empire, but it was accomplished under such severe difficulties that its results must be considered no more than estimates. The census takers were untrained and mostly unsupervised. [2]

Contents

Types

General Census

Sultan Mahmut II recorded the first general census as part of his effort to create a new army (Nizam-ı Cedid Army) and bureaucracy, a period known as Nizam-ı Cedid, following the destruction of the Janissary Corps, known as Auspicious Incident, in 1826. The first Ottoman general census was completed in 1831. [3] To provide general supervision and control and to compile and keep empire-wide population records, a separate Census Department (Ceride-i Nufus Nezareti) was established for the first time as part of the Ministry of the Interior. [4]

The 1831 census remained the only empire-wide count for official and private use for at least fifteen years, that was the beginning of Tanzimat. [5] The Tanzimat provincial reforms included provisions for census counts as part of the process by which the tax and property systems were reformed. [6] In fact that is a system, for military and tax which state based its existence, which constantly updated and provided very accurate population change. Local mayors (muhtars) and millet religious officers were assigned locally to count the people, to announce and enforce state regulations, and, ultimately, to issue the census receipts (niifus tezkeresi) and travel permits (murur tezkeresi) which became the basis for population control as well as for the count in subsequent decades. [7]

Special Census

There were cities, regions that were essential to Ottomans. While empire-wide census reports performed only sporadically, these cities or regions had multiple tallies. The city Istanbul had tallies in 1835, 1838, 1844, and 1857. There are not yet been uncovered summaries distributed in Ottoman Archives (around the Europe and Middle East) after the dissolution and partitioning of the Empire.

Department of the Census

The organizational structure of the Department of the Census (Niifus-u Umumi Idaresi) was an independent unit (mudurluk) in the Ministry of the Interior. [8] It was separated from the army, that had its own personal records, and cadastral, that tracked the values for taxation reasons, departments. Department of the Census was divided into three major bureaus: for correspondence (Tahrirat Kalemi), statistics (Ihsaiyat Kalemi), and archives (Evrak Kalemi), with an additional Forwarding Department (Irsalat Memuriyet) which cared for the dispatch and receipt of correspondence. Outside the main office in the capital, the district staffs headed by directors (nazir) were assigned to each provincial capital to direct the work of the officials stationed along the Administrative divisions of the Ottoman Empire. [9]

Ottoman census system

Like the modern census system, the most important part is the initial compilation of permanent population registers (sicil-i niifus) in each village and each quarter of the larger towns and cities. Census scribes, in doing their job required to accompanied by the religious leaders and mayors, which the data recorded not just the name and characteristics of each person found in their districts, including for the first time their gender, "women" was included in the register sheet ahead of many counterparts. [10]

The registration form was standardized. Standard form had types based on the persons stated religion. Separate registers for each recognized millet. All register pages numbered consecutively and sealed so that false pages could not be substituted for the real ones. Instead of the empty pages left at the ends of the original registers in previous censuses, separate registers of daily census changes (vukuat) were now introduced, with the kaza and provincial administrative councils being required to certify their accuracy before the information was sent on to Istanbul for incorporation into the empire-wide statistics. Printed information certificates were now provided, and most of the fees went to the local informants so that reports would be regular and prompt.

The census questions:

Population Certificate

Population Certificate was an important paper to hold for the subject of the Ottoman Empire. During census each person recorded and counted in return with a signed and sealed Population Certificate (Nufus Tezkeresi), more or less a receipt for the registration, which contained the same information set down in the register.

All practical purpose Population Certificate served both as birth certificate and identity card and had to be produced in all governmental and legal dealings.

Notes

  1. The first census after the American Revolution was taken in 1790
  2. Decennial censuses of the general population started in 1801

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ottoman Empire</span> Turkish empire from c. 1299 to 1922

The Ottoman Empire, historically and colloquially the Turkish Empire, was an empire that controlled much of Southeast Europe, Western Asia, and Northern Africa between the 14th and early 20th centuries. It was founded at the end of the 13th century in northwestern Anatolia in the town of Söğüt by the Turkoman tribal leader Osman I. After 1354, the Ottomans crossed into Europe and, with the conquest of the Balkans, the Ottoman beylik was transformed into a transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 by Mehmed the Conqueror.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Selim III</span> 28th Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1789 to 1807

Selim III was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1789 to 1807. Regarded as an enlightened ruler, the Janissaries eventually deposed and imprisoned him, and placed his cousin Mustafa on the throne as Mustafa IV. Selim was subsequently killed by a group of assassins.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tanzimat</span> Ottoman Empire reform period from 1839 to 1876

The Tanzimat was a period of reform in the Ottoman Empire that began with the Gülhane Hatt-ı Şerif in 1839 and ended with the First Constitutional Era in 1876. The Tanzimat era began with the purpose, not of radical transformation, but of modernization, desiring to consolidate the social and political foundations of the Ottoman Empire. It was characterised by various attempts to modernise the Ottoman Empire and to secure its territorial integrity against internal nationalist movements and external aggressive powers. The reforms encouraged Ottomanism among the diverse ethnic groups of the Empire and attempted to stem the tide of the rise of nationalism in the Ottoman Empire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Military of the Ottoman Empire</span>

The military of the Ottoman Empire was the armed forces of the Ottoman Empire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Decline and modernization of the Ottoman Empire</span> Period of the Ottoman empire

In the late eighteenth century, the Ottoman Empire faced numerous enemies. In response to these threats, the empire initiated a period of internal reform. The period of these reforms is known as the Tanzimat, and led to the end of the Old Regime period. The Ottoman central state was significantly strengthened, despite the empire's precarious international position. Over the course of the nineteenth century, the Ottoman state became increasingly powerful and rationalized, exercising a greater degree of influence over its population than in any previous era. The process of reforming and modernization in the empire began with the declaration of the Nizam-I Cedid during the reign of Sultan Selim III and was punctuated by several reform decrees, such as the Hatt-ı Şerif of Gülhane in 1839 and the Hatt-ı Hümayun in 1856.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mehmed Fuad Pasha</span> Ottoman administrator and statesman (1814–1869)

Mehmed Fuad Pasha, sometimes known as Keçecizade Mehmed Fuad Pasha and commonly known as Fuad Pasha, was an Ottoman administrator and statesman, who is known for his prominent role in the Tanzimat reforms of the mid-19th-century Ottoman Empire, as well as his leadership during the 1860 Mount Lebanon civil war in Syria. He represented a modern Ottoman era, given his openness to European-style modernization as well as the reforms he helped to enact.

The Ottoman Armenian population varied throughout history. The number of Armenians within the empire between 1914 and 1915 is a controversial topic. Most estimates by Western scholars range from 1.5 to 2.4 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alemdar Mustafa Pasha</span> Ottoman military commander (died 1808)

Alemdar Mustafa Pasha was an Ottoman military commander and a Grand Vizier born in Hotin in the then Ottoman territory of Ukraine in 1765. Of Albanian origin, he hailed from the village of Goskovë near Korçë).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nizam-I Cedid</span> Series of reforms carried under reign of Selim III in Ottoman Empire

The Nizam-i Cedid was a series of reforms carried out by Ottoman Sultan Selim III during the late 18th and the early 19th centuries in a drive to catch up militarily and politically with the Western powers. The New Order regime was launched by Selim III and a coalition of reformers. Its central objectives were the creation of a professional army along European lines, a private treasury to finance military spending, and other administrative reforms. The age of the New Order can be generally said to have lasted from 1789 to 1807, when Selim III was deposed by a Janissary coup.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ottoman Old Regime</span> Refers to a period of stagnation and reform in Ottoman history

The history of the Ottoman Empire in the 18th century has classically been described as one of stagnation and reform. In analogy with 18th-century France, it is also known as the Ancien Régime or Old Regime, contrasting with the "New Regime" of the Nizam-i Cedid and Tanzimat in the 19th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ottoman Bulgaria</span> Bulgarian territory controlled by the Ottoman Empire, 14th-19th centuries

The history of Ottoman Bulgaria spans nearly 500 years, from the conquest of the smaller kingdoms emerging from the disintegrating Second Bulgarian Empire by the Ottoman Empire in the late 14th century, to the Liberation of Bulgaria in 1878. The brutal suppression of the Bulgarian April Uprising of 1876 and the public outcry it caused across Europe led to the Constantinople Conference, where the Great Powers tabled a joint proposal for the creation of two autonomous Bulgarian vilayets, largely corresponding to the ethnic boundaries drawn a decade earlier with the establishment of the Bulgarian Exarchate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Danube vilayet</span> First-level administrative division of the Ottoman Empire

The Vilayet of the Danube or Danubian Vilayet was a first-level administrative division (vilayet) of the Ottoman Empire from 1864 to 1878. In the late 19th century it reportedly had an area of 34,120 square miles (88,400 km2).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adrianople vilayet</span> First-level administrative division of the Ottoman Empire

The Vilayet of Adrianople or Vilayet of Edirne was a first-level administrative division (vilayet) of the Ottoman Empire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ottoman casualties of World War I</span> Civilian and military casualties

Ottoman casualties of World War I were the civilian and military casualties sustained by the Ottoman Empire during the First World War. Almost 1.5% of the Ottoman population, or approximately 300,000 people of the Empire's 21 million population in 1914, were estimated to have been killed during the war. Of the total 300,000 casualties, 250,000 are estimated to have been military fatalities, with civilian casualties numbering over 50,000. In addition to the 50,000 civilian deaths, an estimated 1.5 million Armenians, 750,000 Greeks, and 300,000 Assyrians were systematically targeted and killed by Turkish authorities either via the military or Kurdish gangs. Likewise, starting in 1916, Ottoman authorities forcibly displaced an estimated 700,000 Kurdish people westward, and an estimated 350,000 died from hunger, exposure, and disease.

This article is about the demographics of the Ottoman Empire, including population density, ethnicity, education level, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.

Ihtisab, or ihtisap was a type of tax on markets in the Ottoman Empire; the muhtasib or ihtisap ağasi - the ihtisab collector - had a broader role in regulating and taxing markets under the authority of the kadı.

<i>Cedid Atlas</i> 1803 Ottoman atlas

Cedid Atlas was the first modern atlas in the Muslim world, printed and published in 1803 in Constantinople. The atlas was created by translating and adapting maps from William Faden's General Atlas and the full title of the atlas reads as Cedid Atlas Tercümesi and in most libraries outside Turkey, it is recorded and referenced accordingly.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nizam-i Djedid Army</span> Reformed infantry of the Ottoman Army

The Nizam-ı Cedid Army refers to the new military establishment of the Nizam-ı Cedid reform program. The Nizam-i Cedid army was largely a failure in its own time, but proved to be a much more effective infantry force than the Janissaries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1914 Ottoman census</span> 1914 census of the population of the Ottoman Empire

The 1914 Ottoman census was collected and published as the Memalik-i Osmaniyyenin 1330 Senesi Nütus Istatistiki. These statistics were prepared by using the figures from the 1905–06 census of the Ottoman Empire and reflecting births and deaths registered in six years from last. The register states that birth and mortality rate used on "nomads" such as the nomadic Nestorians.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Capanoğlu Süleyman Bey</span>

Süleyman Bey or Capanoğlu Süleyman Bey was an Ottoman military leader and office holder from the Çapanoğlu family, one of the most powerful Ottoman dynasties of the 18th century. Under his guidance the family reached its peak of prominence.

References

  1. Shaw 1978 , p. 325
  2. Stanford J. Shaw. "The Ottoman Census System and Population, 1831-1914". International Journal of Middle East Studies. 9 (3): 326.
  3. Shaw 1978 , p. 325
  4. Shaw 1978 , p. 327
  5. Shaw 1978 , p. 327
  6. Shaw 1978 , p. 327
  7. Shaw 1978 , p. 327
  8. Shaw 1978 , p. 330
  9. Shaw 1978 , p. 330
  10. Shaw 1978 , p. 331

Bibliography