Abstract:

The sanjak of Harput covered an area of 3200 square kilometers in the Upper Euphrates section of the Region of East Anatolia, which is today within the borders of the province of Elazığ. The area of the sanjak is bounded by the the valley of the river of Murat in the east, which falls in the present-day Keban Dam Reservoir, and by the mountains of Bulutlu, Hasan and Piran in the west. Muslims and non-Muslims used to live together in Harput. A great majority of the non-Muslim population was comprised by Armenians. Demographic information given in the Mamuratül-Aziz Provincial (Vilayet) annals dating to the period between the years 1881 and 1910 exhibits close parallels to the same kind of information provided by foreign authors in the same period. In this study, the demographic situation in the sanjak of Harput has been examined: The demographic structure of the sanjak of Harput in the 19th century is presented based on the Harput Population Registers, and the publications of the period.

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