Demographic features of Ottoman upper Thrace : a case study on Filibe, Tatar Pazarcık and İstanimaka (1472-1614)

Abstract

The thesis examines the demographic processes of three Ottoman cities in the period late fifteenth – early seventeenth centuries. Seen through the data provided by the Ottoman tax and population censuses (tahrir defterleri) the research illustrates three different types of urban development and demographic trends in the Ottoman Upper Thrace. The first type, representative of which was the city of Filibe, points preOttoman settlements, which as a consequence of the policy of the central Ottoman administration, have been recreated and repopulated with Turkish colonists from Asia Minor. The central authority played a crucial role in the demographic processes there. The second type, Tatar Pazarcık, is an example of newly founded Ottoman city in the development of which the state also took active part. The third type, İstamimaka, represents settlement from the medieval Balkan period, which stayed out of the strategic interest of the Ottoman government, having minor state interference in the natural demographic processes.