Six Armenian vilayets - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Six vilayets or Six provinces ( Vilâyat-ı Sitte) or the Six Armenian vilayets ( Vets' haykakan vilayet'ner) were the Armenian-populated vilayets (provinces) of the Ottoman Empire

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

Van
Erzurum
Mamuretülaziz
Bitlis
Bitlis Vilayet
Bitlis Vilayet was one of the Six vilayets of the Ottoman Empire. Before the Russo-Turkish War it had been part of the Erzurum Vilayet, it was then made a separate vilayet by the Porte....
Diyarbekir
Sivas

The term

The term Six Armenian provinces was first used in the Congress of Berlin

Congress of Berlin

The Congress of Berlin was a meeting of the European Great Powers' and the Ottoman Empire's leading statesmen in Berlin in 1878. In the wake of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78, the meeting's aim was to reorganize the countries of the Balkans...

in 1878.

Ethnic groups

Reliable population statistcs do not exist. Different versions are shown below.

French estimation, 1897

Ethnic groups	Bitlis	Diyarbekir	Erzurum	Mamuretülaziz	Sivas	Van	TOTAL	%
Armenians	131,390	79,129	134,967	69,718	170,433	80,798	666,435	15,6
Muslims	398,625	471,462	645,702	575,814	1,086,015	430,000	3,607,618	84,4
TOTAL	530,015	550,591	780,669	645,532	1,256,448	510,798	4,274,053	100

Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople

The Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople also known as Armenian Patriarch of Istanbul is today head of The Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople , one of the smallest Patriarchates of the Oriental Orthodox Church but one that has exerted a very significant political role and today still exercises...

, 1912:

Note: The analysis excludes certain portions of these provinces where the Armenians are only a minor element. These portions are as follows: Hakkari, in the Vilayet of Van; the south of Sairt, the the Vilayet of Bitlis; the south of Vlayet of Diyarbekir; the south of Malatia, in the Vilayet of Mamouret-ul-Aziz; the north-west and west of the Vilayet of Sivas.

There is no evidence supporting the data of the Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople, as the methods of gathering of data was never cited. Also, the Patriarch had issued statistics of Six Vilayets in 1882 stating a total of 1.63 million Armenians in the area, 2.55 times the number they reached in the 1914 Census Report, but disowned 1882 figures in 1912 to publish new figures.

Ethnic groups	Bitlis	Diyarbekir	Erzurum	Mamuretülaziz	Sivas	Van	TOTAL	%
Armenians	180,000	105,000	215,000	168,000	165,000	185,000	1,018,000	38.9
Turks¹	48,000	72,000	265,000	182,000	192,000	47,000	806,000	30.8
Kurds²	77,000	55,000	75,000	95,000	50,00	72,000	499,000	19.1
Others³	30,000	64,000	48,000	5,000	100,000	43,000	290,000	11.1
TOTAL	382,000	296,000	630,000	450,000	507,000	350,000	2,615,000	100
¹ including Qizilbash ² including Zaza Zaza people The Zazas, Kird, Kirmanc or Dimilis are an ethnic Iranic people whose native language is Zazaki spoken in eastern Anatolia. They primarily live in the eastern Anatolian provinces, such as Adıyaman, Aksaray, Batman, Bingöl, Diyarbakır, Elazığ, Erzurum, Erzincan , Gumushane, Kars, Malatya, Mus,... ³ Assyrians (Nestorians Nestorianism Nestorianism is a Christological doctrine advanced by Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople from 428–431. The doctrine, which was informed by Nestorius's studies under Theodore of Mopsuestia at the School of Antioch, emphasizes the disunion between the human and divine natures of Jesus... , Jacobites Syriac Orthodox Church The Syriac Orthodox Church; is an autocephalous Oriental Orthodox church based in the Eastern Mediterranean, with members spread throughout the world. The Syriac Orthodox Church claims to derive its origin from one of the first Christian communities, established in Antioch by the Apostle St.... , Chaldeans Chaldean Christians Chaldean Christians are ethnic Assyrian adherents of the Chaldean Catholic Church, most of whom entered communion with the Catholic Church from the Church of the East, which was already Catholic, but most wanted to stray away from the Catholic Church, causing the split in the 17th and 18th... ), Circassians, Greeks Greeks The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world.... , Yazidi Yazidi The Yazidi are members of a Kurdish religion with ancient Indo-Iranian roots. They are primarily a Kurdish-speaking people living in the Mosul region of northern Iraq, with additional communities in Transcaucasia, Armenia, Turkey, and Syria in decline since the 1990s – their members emigrating to... s, Persians Persian people The Persian people are part of the Iranian peoples who speak the modern Persian language and closely akin Iranian dialects and languages. The origin of the ethnic Iranian/Persian peoples are traced to the Ancient Iranian peoples, who were part of the ancient Indo-Iranians and themselves part of... , Lazs Laz people The Laz are an ethnic group native to the Black Sea coastal regions of Turkey and Georgia... , Roma

Ottoman official census, 1914:

Note: The Ottoman census doesn't give information for separate Muslim ethnic groups such as the Turks, Kurds, Circassians, etc.

Most modern Western scholars agree that the official Ottoman census underestimated the number of ethnic minorities, including the number of Armenians.

Ethnic groups	Bitlis	Diyarbekir	Erzurum	Mamuretülaziz	Sivas	Van	TOTAL	%
Muslims	309,999	492,101	673,297	446,376	939,735	179,380	3,040,888	79.6
Armenians	119,132	65,850	136,618	87,862	151,674	67,792	628,928	16.5
Others	44,348	4,020	5,797	4,047	78,173	11,969	148,354	3.9
TOTAL	473,479	561,971	815,712	538,285	1,169,582	259,141	3,818,170	100

The term

Ethnic groups

See also