[HISTORICAL ISSUE] - Population of the Balkan Peninsula

**krste** · August 20, 2010, 11:29 AM

Hi everybody! I have a simple request could someone of you tell me how large was the population of the Balkan Peninsula during different periods of history. I was unable to find any information about this online

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**phoenix[illusion]** · August 20, 2010, 11:38 AM

well, it's hard to tell.
depends of period. in period when this mod starts, black death came.
anyways, i'm not expert in population, probably someone will answer, but we have thread, there's some population in the cities.
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=369733

**alien_t** · August 21, 2010, 05:39 AM

Just a hint, search for the earliest Ottoman tax registers. Probably from late XVth cent.

**krste** · August 21, 2010, 05:47 AM

The only information i was able to find was on Wikipedia and it said that during the late 16th century it was 8 millions but it dropped to only 3 millions in the mid 18th century

**clandestino** · August 21, 2010, 07:08 AM

Population of England was around 3-3,75 millions at 1348. ( before the great plague ) and England and generally western Europe were more densely populated then Balkan so I presume that on comparable area in Balkan ( 130,000 km2) population would be smaller. Population density in England was around 27 men per km2 so for the entire area of Balkan ( counting European part of Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, FYROM, Albania, Bosnia and Serbia and Croatia south from Danube and Sava ) this would give around 14,850,000 people if density was comparable to English, however due to much more mountainous relief, harsher climate and general economic disadvantage population density probably was much smaller, maybe 20 or 15 men per km2.

**alien_t** · August 21, 2010, 02:34 PM

Here it is some figures but they're only about bulgarians, not the whole balkan population.
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...80#post6633880
http://www.promacedonia.org/hg/summary.html

Probably you can't find the data from ottoman tax registers, because they're in turkish.

**slavic_crusader** · August 22, 2010, 07:33 AM

@clandestino
I like your approach at this.. Seems very professional....

**SerbianInfantry** · August 22, 2010, 11:59 AM

Originally Posted by slavic_crusader

@clandestino
I like your approach at this.. Seems very professional....

Haha I tought the same thing

**clandestino** · August 22, 2010, 12:24 PM

Thanks guys, I found some other data as well: when Ragusans bought peninsula of Peljesac from emperor Dusan in 1333. its entire population was grouped in 300 households. Even if we take that every household had average of 10 family members that gives only 3000 people living in the area of some 350 km! That gives less then 10 men per km2,and for entire Balkan peninsula that would give only some 5,5 million of people. However I think that number was probably greater, somewhere between the highest and lowest estimation, 27 and 10 men per square km , somewhere around 18 men per square km. Now one should only determine approximate areas of the states in this time and calculate the populations, that would be easiest to do for Bulgaria cause its borders were similar with the present, with area of approximately 110,000 km2, by my calculation that would give population of 2 millions before the great plague. For Bosnia, with slightly less area then today ,around 750,000. For Serbia it would be trickiest to determine exact area but I think it was approximately 220,000 square km, or something around 4 millions of inhabitants. Byzantium would have larger density population because of the two big cities, Constantinople and Thessaloniki, however I find it hard to determine its area, it was slightly smaller then Bulgaria, maybe some 80,000 square kms, population around 1,5 millions or smaller. The rest, Frankish states in Greece, some 200-300,000.