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The Vilayet of Van[1] (ولايت وان, Vilâyet-i Van; Armenian: Վանի վիլայեթ, Vani vilayet') was one of the Six vilayets of the Ottoman Empire. At the beginning of the 20th century it reportedly had a population of about 400,000 and an area of 15,000 square miles (39,000 km2).[1]
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The province had been established in the 16th after the Peace of Amasya between Ottoman Empire and Persia. Until 19th century the borders of the province had been changed. In 1897-1902 the boundaries of vilayet didn't change. The center of province was Van. It was also the border province of the north-eastern frontier, towards Russian and Persian territory. It was consisted from sanjaks of Van and Hakkari and covered present provinces of Van, Hakkari and parts of Şırnak, Muş and Bingöl ones.
At the beginning of the 20th century it reportedly had an area of 15,440 square miles (40,000 km2), while the preliminary results of the first Ottoman census of 1885 (published in 1908) gave the population as 376,297.[3] It should be noted that the accuracy of the population figures ranges from "approximate" to "merely conjectural" depending on the region from which they were gathered.[3]
Based on the official 1914 Ottoman Census the population of Van province consisted of 179,422 Muslims and 67,797 Armenians.[4] The Ottoman Census figures include only male citizens, excluding women and children. According to Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople, the corrected estimates for Van province (including women and children) was; 313,000 Muslims, 130,000 Armenians, and 65,000 others, including Syriac Christians and Nestorians.[5]
Vilayet of Van lay along the Persian frontier between the vilayets of Erzurum and Mosul. The northern sanjak comprised open plateau country N. and E. of the lake (with a large Armenian agricultural population and Kurdish seminomad tribes occupied chiefly in cattle and sheep raising), also of several fertile districts along the south shore of the lake. The southern sanjak was entirely mountainous, little developed and having the tribes only partly under government control. This comprised most of the upper basin of the Great Zab, with the country of the Nestorian Christians and many districts inhabited by Kurdish tribes, some of them large nomad tribes who descended for the winter to the plains of the Tigris.
The mineral wealth of the vilayet was never fully explored, but was believed to be great. There were petroleum springs at Kordzot, deposits of lignite at Sivan (now Avnik village in Bingöl) and Nurduz, several hot springs at Zilan Creek and Julamerk (Now Hakkari). Excellent tobacco was grown in Shemsdinan for export to Persia.
Sanjaks of the Vilayet:[6]
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