The Dečani Charter from 1330#redirect contained detailed list of households and chartered villages in Metohija and northwestern Albania:
3 of 89 settlements were Albanian, the other being non-Albanian.
Out of the 2,166 farming homesteads and 2,666 houses in cattle-grazing land, 44 were registrated as Albanian (1,8%). Others were registered as Slavic i. e. Serbian.
The non-Serbian population of Kosovo didn't exceed 2% by the end of the 14th century.#redirect
15th century
1455: Turkish cadastral taxcensus (defter)The original Turkish-language copy of the census is stored in Istanbul's archives. However, in 1972 the Sarajevo Institute of Middle Eastern Studies translated the census and published an analysis of it Kovačević Mr. Ešref, Handžić A., Hadžibegović H. Oblast Brankovića - Opširni katastarski popis iz 1455., Orijentalni institut, Sarajevo 1972. Subsequently others have covered the subject as well such as Vukanović Tatomir, Srbi na Kosovu, Vranje, 1986. of the Brankovic dynasty lands (covering 80% of present-day Kosovo) recorded 480 villages, 13,693 adult males, 12,985 dwellings, 14,087 household heads (480 widows and 13,607 adult males). By ethnicity:
12,985 Serbian dwellings present in all 480 villages and towns
The same was repeated during the Second Migration of Serbs in 1737.
19th century
19th century data about the population of Kosovo tend to be rather conflicting, giving sometimes numerical superiority to the Serbs and sometimes to the Albanians. The Ottoman statistics are regarded as unreliable, as the empire counted its citizens by religion rather than nationality, using birth records rather than surveys of individuals.
A study in 1838 by an Austrian physician, dr. Joseph Müller found Metohija to be mostly Slavic (Serbian) in character.Dr. Joseph Müller, Albanien, Rumelien und die Österreichisch-montenegrinische Gränze, Prag, 1844 Müller gives data for the three counties (Bezirke) of Prizren, Peć and Đakovica which roughly covered Metohija, the portion adjacent to Albania and most affected by Albanian settlers. Out of 195,000 inhabitants in Metohija, Müller found:
Map published by French ethnographer G. LejeanH.R. Wilkinson, Maps and Politics; a review of the ethnographic cartography of Macedonia, Liverpool University Press, 1951 in 1861 shows that Albanians lived on around 57% of the territory of today's province while a similar map, published by British travellers G. M. Mackenzie and A. P. Irby in 1867 shows slightly less; these maps don't show which population was larger overall.
A study done in 1871 by Austrian colonel Peter KukuljDas Fürstenthum Serbien und Türkisch-Serbien, eine militärisch-geographische Skizze von Peter Kukolj, Major im k.k.Generalstabe, Wien 1871 for the internal use of the Austro-Hungarian army showed that the mutesarifluk of Prizren (corresponding largely to present-day Kosovo) had some 500,000 inhabitants, of which:
It is estimated that between 200,000 and 400,000 Serbs were cleansed out of the Vilayet of Kosovo between 1876 and 1912, especially during the Greek-Ottoman War in 1897.http://www.kosovo.net/sk/history/kosovo_origins/ko_chapter2.html
Maps published by German historian Kiepert in 1876, J. Hahn and Austrian consul K. Sax, show that Albanians live on most of the territory of today's province, however they don't show which population is larger. According to these, the regions of Kosovska Mitrovica and Kosovo Polje were settled mostly by Serbs, whereas most of the terrirory of western and eastern parts of today's province was settled by Moslem Albanians.
An Austrian statisticsDetailbeschreibung des Sandzaks Plevlje und des Vilajets Kosovo (Mit 8 Beilagen und 10 Taffeln), Als Manuskript gedruckt, Vien 1899, 80-81. published in 1899 estimated:
British journalist H. Brailsford estimatedH. N. Brailsford, Macedonia, Its Races and Their Future, London, 1906 that two-thirds of the population of Kosovo was Albanian and one-third Serbian. The most populous western districts of Djakovica and Pec were said to have between 20,000 and 25,000 Albanian households, as against some 5,000 Serbian ones. Map of Alfred SteadServia by the Servians, Compiled and Edited by Alfred Stead, With a Map, London (William Heinemann), 1909. (Etnographical Map of Servia, Scale 1:2.750.000)., published in 1909, shows that similar numbers of Serbs and Albanians were living in the territory.
German scholar Gustav Weigand gave the following statistical data about the population of Kosovo, based on the pre-war situation in Kosovo in 1912:
Metohija with the town of Djakovica is furthermore defined as almost exclusively Albanian by Weigand.
The population composition changed a lot in the 20th century. Expulsion of Albanians took place continuously, according to an ill-famous document, prepared by the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts leading member, Vaso Čubrilović, in the document called "Iseljavanje Arnauta" (from Serbian "Expulsion of Arnauts")[link].
1921 a total of 439,010 inhabitants #redirect whereof 280,440 (64.1%)Vickers, Miranda. Between Serb and Albanian - A History of Kosovo. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998 (quoting the official publications of the results of the 1921 and 1931 censuses in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes / the Kingdom of Yugoslavia)Albanians
A map of the Serbian census of 1921[*] shows that most of the terrirory was settled by Albanians, with Serbian enclaves around Prizren, Sredska Zupa and Pristina. Religion on the largest part of the territory was Islam with Eastern Orthodox enclaves around Kosovska Mitrovica, Pristina and GnjilaneZec, Stevan, "Maps of our dividings political atlas of Yugoslav countries in XX century", Beograd : Beogradsko mašinsko-grafičko preduzeće, 1991..
1931 552,064 total inhabitants#redirect whereof 347,213 (62.8%) Albanians
Colonisation programmes were implemented by the Serbian authorities in the periods between 1922 and 1929, and 1933 and 1938 leading to the settlement of some 10,000 Serbian families, mostly in northern Kosovo, Kosovo Polje and along the Lab River.
An agreement on the emigration of some 200,000 Albanians and Turks was signed with the Republic of Turkey in 1938. As Turkey pulled out of the agreement at an early stage for fear of not being able to accommodate the immigrants, only 4,000 Muslims left the province.
However, The Yugoslav authorities conducted a census on the region of Kosovo - estimating 125,000 Albanians in 1939.
After the province gained autonomy, local provincial Statistical office given authority over census whereas the rest of the country's census was under the tutelage of the Federal Statistical Commission. Allegations of census rigging (for the 1971 and 1981) by Turk, Muslim and Roma minorities who claim forceful Albanization#redirect . Serb claims Albanians drastically overincreased their own numbers. Nothing could be substantiated though because the Kosovo Statistical offices were under exclusive Albanian control which was against the national norm at the time which dicated that census takers had to be of different nationalities (i.e. one Albanian and one Serb not both Albanian as was the case in the two following censa).
Yugoslav Central Government reasserts control over Kosovo in 1989.
Official Yugoslav statistical results, almost all Albanians and some Roma, Muslims boyott the census following a call by Ibrahim Rugova to boycott Serbian institutions.
1991
359,346 total population
The corrections should not taken to be fully accurate. The number of Albanians is sometimes regarded as being an underestimate. On the other hand, it is sometimes regarded as an overestimate, being derived from earlier censa which are believed to be overestimates. The Statistical Office of Kosovo states that the quality of the 1991 census is "questionable." [link].
In September 1993, the Bosniak parlament returned their historical name Bosniaks, during the regime of communist Yugoslavia, made as a compromise between a Moslem Communist leader Hamdija Pozderac and the Serbian communists. Some Kosovar Muslims have started using this term to refer to themselves since.
1995 Hivzi Islami's estimate
In the year of 1995, Dr. Hivzi Islami of the Prishtina Demographic Department for Kosovo conducted an unofficial census estimate for Kosova. There was a total of around 2,200,000 Kosovar inhabitants according to the department:
* Albanians - around 1,960,000 (89.9%); 1,360,000 without the diaspora
The same department counted in the list of all Albanian diaspora that had the Yugoslavcitizenship - a list of around 500,000 ethnic Albanians with Yugoslav citizenship living abroad:
Just before the 13 October1998, UNHCR estimated that there were around 200,000 misplaced people in Kosovo in the civil war that already engulphed half of the province. Of that, some 120,000 were displaced abroad (forming 80% of FRJ's displaced diaspora):
In 1998 the Federal Secretariat of Information in Belgrade estimated a pre-term population census for the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija listing around 1,378,980 citizens:
During the Kosovo War in 1999, over 700,000 ethnic AlbaniansBBC: [link] and around 100,000 ethnic Serbs were forced out of the province to neighbouring Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Serbia. After the United Nations took over administration of Kosovo following the war, the vast majority of the Albanian refugees returned.
Many non-Albanians - chiefly Serbs and Roma - fled or were expelled, mostly to the rest of Serbia at the end of the war, with further refugee outflows occurring as the result of sporadic ethnic violence. The number of registered refugees is around 250,000UNHCR: 2002 Annual Statistical Report: Serbia and Montenegro, pg. 9. The non-Albanian population in Kosovo is now about half of its pre-war total. The largest concentration of Serbs in the province is in the north, but many remain in Kosovo Serb enclaves surrounded by Albanian-populated areas.
Also, according to Macedonian and Serbian sources, the Gorani people, living on the south-most tip of the Kosovo are systematically oppressed and denied their minority rights http://www.realitymacedonia.org.mk/web/news_page.asp?nid=1981http://www.rastko.org.yu/rastko-gora/index.php.
The 2000 Living Standard Measurement Survey by Statistical Office of Kosovo (rejected by BelgradePeople's Daily: [Belgrade to Reject Results of U.N.-Conducted Census in Kosovo]): Total population estimated between 1,8 and 2,0 million, however, it was boycotted largely by non-Albanians.Living Standard Measurement Survey 2000, Statistical Office of Kosovo - see also [Kosovo and its Population]
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) estimates the population at 2.0 to 2.2 million people, extrapolating from voter registration data recorded by the UNMIK Department of Local Administration in 2000. [link]
Some estimates by Albanian demographers estimate a population of 2.4 million Albanians living in Kosovo today. This is regarded by most independent observers as an overestimate as it would imply a total population of some 2.5-2.6 million people in Kosovo, much higher than other estimates.
