Urban Population in Anatolia in the Sixteenth Century: A Study of Kayseri, Karaman, Amasya, Trabzon, and Erzurum

Abstract

The rapid rise in the population of the Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century is well known. Ömer Lütfi Barkan long ago published a table showing that twelve important Ottoman cities grew from a combined population of 142,562 in 1520/1530 to a population of 271,494 in 1571/1580; likewise he has shown that the population of five major provinces in Anatolia grew 59.9 per cent in the same period, from 872,610 to 1,360,474. Fernand Braudel supports the thesis that there was a general 100 per cent population growth throughout the Mediterranean basin in the sixteenth century, and Barkan claims that growth at the Ottoman end of the Mediterranean was even more dynamic. However, there is still need for specialized studies of Ottoman population and its flux in the sixteenth century.