Demographic history of Kosovo


This article includes information on the demographic history of Kosovo.

Prehistory and Antiquity

The region was originally inhabited by Thracians, and subsequently by Illyrians and Celts. During antiquity, the area was inhabited by the Dardani and by the fourth century BC the Dardanian Kingdom was founded.
According to Ancient Greek historian Strabo, the Dardanians were Illyrians and he included them as part of the Illyrian world in his geography.
The Dardani, whose exact ethno-linguistic affiliation is difficult to determine, were a prominent group in the region during the late Hellenistic and early Roman eras. The area was originally populated with Thracians who were then exposed to Illyrian influence. After Roman conquest of Illyria in 168 BC, Romans colonized and founded several cities in the region, such as Ulpiana, Theranda and Vicianum, later incorporating it into the Roman province of Illyricum in 59 BC. Subsequently, it became part of Moesia Superior in AD 87. The region was exposed to an increasing number of 'barbarian' raids from the 4th century AD onwards, culminating with the Slavic migrations of the 6th and 7th centuries. Archaeologically, the early Middle Ages represent a hiatus in the material record.
The region, together with the rest of the Balkans, saw a massive invasion of Slavic tribes around 500-600 AD. Byzantine scholar Procopius, who lived at the time, in his book, History of the Wars, Book VII, described how the Slavs invaded the Balkans, pillaged, enslaved and killed it's native Illyrian and Thracian population.
According to other sources, the plague of Justinian had killed millions of native Balkan people and as a result many regions had become depopulated and neglected by the government, this gave the Slavs a chance into raiding and settling in the Balkans.

Early and High Middle Ages

The region had been part of the Roman and the Byzantium until the first major Slav raids took place in the middle of Justinian's reign. In 547 and 548 the Slavs invaded the territory of modern Kosovo, and then got as far as Durres on the Northern Albanian coast and reached all the way down to Greece.
Although the Balkans had been raided by Slavic tribes, the early Slavic settlement and power in Kosovo was not big, until the region was later absorbed into the Bulgarian Empire in the 850s, where Christianity and a Byzantine-Slavic culture was cemented in the region. After the collapse of the Bulgarian Empire, the Region became later again part of the Byzantine Empire after the empire fully re-established itself and would stay under Byzantine rule for nearly two centuries after that until later Serbian Grand Prince Stefan Nemanja, who had expanded his empire south and into Kosovo conquered it by the end of the 12th century.
According to Serbian scholars, although Albanians lived between Lake Skadar and the Devoll river in the 1100s, Albanian migration into the plains of Metohija commenced at the end of the century. Some of the arriving Albanians were assimilated by Serbs and Montenegrins. Several Albanian personal names and placenames appear in various parts of Kosovo and North Macedonia in the 13th century, the first identifiably Albanian place name appearing in Kosovo, attested in a 1253 statement by Serbian knez Miroslav. By 1330, the frequency of identifiably Albanian names in a 1330 chrysobull describing estates in Decan is "many", although attempts to ascertain reliable percentages of the Albanian population relative to Serbs at this period or later are described by Madgearu as "difficult".
The presence of Vlach villages in the vicinity of Prizren is attested in 1198–1199 by a charter of Stephan Nemanja.
According to Ducellier and Noel Malcolm, part of the Albanian population in Kosovo is from a pre-Ottoman Albanian population within the Kosovo region itself that had expanded. This especially given that there is no evidence of any large Albanian migrations into Kosovo up until the 16th-17th century.
According to Noel Malcolm, except for migrations from Northern Albania, large parts of the Albanian demographic growth in Kosovo was the expansion of a native Albanian population within the Kosovo region itself.
Bosnian historian Hanzic and Croatian scholar Milan Sufflay also concluded the same thing, that part of the Albanian population in Kosovo, such as the Western part of Kosovo, was from an old native population.

9th-13 century

Bulgarian Rule

Between ca. 830 and ca, 1015 the region was Bulgarian. According to Richard J. Crampton, the development of Old Church Slavonic literacy during the 10th century had the effect of preventing the assimilation of the South Slavs into the Byzantine culture, which promoted the formation of a distinct Bulgarian identity in that area. Afterwards it was ceded to the Byzantine empire as a province called Byzantine Bulgaria.

Byzantine Rule

In 1072 an unsuccessful rebellion led by local Bulgarian landlord Georgi Voiteh arrose in the area and in 1072 in Prizren he was crowned "Tsar of Bulgaria". At the end of the 11th century the Byzantine domains in the Balkans became an arena of fierce hostilities. At the end of the 12th century, formally Byzantium was still the sovereign. The disintegration of Byzantium was complete when in 1204 the Fourth Crusade captured Constantinople.

14th century

Serbian rule

The Dečani chrysobulls of Serbian king Stefan Dečanski contains a detailed list of landholdings and tax farming rights which the monastery of Visoki Dečani held over an area which spanned from southern Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro and parts of northern Albania. The chrysobulls were signed by King Stefan Uroš III Dečanski of Serbia who confirmed existing rights and gave new ones to the monastery. The chrysobulls listed that Visoki Dečani held tax farming rights over 2,097 households of meropsi, 266 Vlach households and 69 sokalniki.
In the 14th century in two chrysobulls or decrees by Serbian rulers, in the villages of modern-day Kosovo area, find Serbs living alongside Albanians and Vlachs, who are cited in the first as being between the White Drin and Lim rivers. In the second Serbian golden bull a total of nine Albanian villages are cited within the vicinity of Prizren.
During this period one can also witness a Serbianisation or Slavicization of the Albanian population in Kosovo, with some Albanians carrying Serbian names and converting to Orthodoxy.

15th century

1455

The Ottoman cadastral tax census of 1455 in the Branković lands recorded:
Yugoslav and Serbian scholars have researched the defter, concluding that:
Out of all names mentioned in this census, conducted by the Ottomans in 1455, covering areas of most of present-day Kosovo, 95.88% of all names were of Slavic origin, 1.90% of Roman origin, 1.56% of uncertain origin, 0.26% of Albanian origin, 0.25% of Greek origin, etc.
However, while Serbian scholars may have come to the conclusion that the defter indicates an overwhelmingly Serbian local population, other scholars have other views. Madgearu instead argues that the series of defters from 1455 onward "shows that Kosovo... was a mosaic of Serbian and Albanian villages", while Prishtina and Prizren already had significant Albanian Muslim populations, and that the same defter of 1455 indicates the presence of Albanians in Tetovo.

1487

The defter of 1487 in the Branković lands recorded:
Scholarship on Kosovo has encompassed Ottoman provincial surveys that have revealed the 15th century ethnic composition of some Kosovo settlements. However, both Serbian and Albanian historians using these records have made much of them while proving little.

16th century

1520–1535

The 1582–83 defter of the Sanjak of Scutari recorded the Peć nahiya as having 235 villages of which some 30 have Albanian families lived besides the majority populated villages containing Orthodox Serbs. The Altun-li nahiya had 41 villages with a Serb majority and Albanian minority.

1591

Ottoman defter from 1591:
Significant clusters of Albanian populations lived in Kosovo especially in the west and centre before and after the Habsburg invasion of 1689–1690, while in Eastern Kosovo they were a small minority. Due to the Ottoman-Habsburg wars and their aftermath, some Albanians from contemporary northern Albania and Western Kosovo settled within the wider Kosovo area in the second half of the 18th century, at times instigated by Ottoman authorities.
Successive persecutions of Serbs by the Ottomans in the southern Balkans resulted in migrations to areas under the control of the Habsburg Monarchy, in particular during the Great Turkish War of 1683–1699. During that war between the Ottomans and the Habsburgs, it led to the flight of a substantial numbers of Serbs and Albanians who had sided with the Austrians, from within and outside Kosovo, to Austrian held Vojvodina and the Military Frontier – Patriarch Arsenije III, one of the refugees, referred to 30,000 or 40,000 souls, but a much later monastic source referred to 37,000 families. Serbian historians have used this second source to talk of a Great Migration of Serbs. Wars in 1717–1738 led to a second exodus of refugees from inside and outside Kosovo, together with reprisals and the enslavement and deportation of a number of Serbs and Albanians by the victorious Ottomans.
During the Great Austro-Turkish War, Albanian Catholic leaders Pjetër Bogdani and Toma Raspasani rallied Kosovo Albanian Catholics and Muslims to the pro-Austrian cause. After the war, when Kosovo did not end up part of the Habsburg empire, harsh reprisals followed. Large numbers of Catholics and Serbs fled north where many "died, some of hunger, others of disease" around Budapest. After the flight of Serbs, the İpek Detachment forced Catholic Albanians in the north to move to the now depopulated plains of southern Serbia, and forced them to convert to Islam there.
According to Noel Malcolm, the Albanians that were forced and settled by the Ottomans were mainly the Catholic Kelmendi tribe from the mountains of Northern Albania that had rebelled and held raids against the Ottomans. As a result, the Ottomans forcibly settled them in the plains to control them better. Many of these families returned to Northern Albania while some stayed.
Many Albanian Catholic families from the North Albanian mountains migrated after the 17th century into Kosovo and many of these families fled blood feuds or to find better land and make space for a bigger population, many of these families also converted to Islam in the Kosovo region. However, there is no evidence of any large Albanian migrations into Kosovo up until the 17th century. Many scholars have concluded therefore also that the growth of the Albanian population in Kosovo was also largely due to the expansion of an indigenous Albanian population within the Kosovo region itself.

19th century

Kosovo was part of the Kosovo Vilayet, which included Kosovo, parts of northern and northwestern North Macedonia, parts of modern eastern Montenegro and much of the Sandzak region. 19th century data about the Kosovo Vilayet 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 map published by French ethnographer G. Lejean in 1861 shows that Albanians lived on around 57% of Kosovo Vilayet 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. Nevethless, maps cannot be used to measure population as they leave out density.
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 what is now Kosovo, 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 territory of western and eastern parts of today's province was settled by Muslim Albanians.
An Austrian statistics published in 1899 estimated about the population of the Kosovo Vilayet:
During and after the Serbian–Ottoman War of 1876–78, between 30,000 and 70,000 Muslims, mostly Albanians, were expelled by the Serb army from the Sanjak of Niș and fled to the Kosovo Vilayet. Serbs from the Lab region moved to Serbia during and after the war of 1876 and incoming Albanian refugees repopulated their villages. Apart from the Lab region, sizeable numbers of Albanian refugees were resettled in other parts of northern Kosovo alongside the new Ottoman-Serbian border. Most Albanian refugees were resettled in over 30 large rural settlements in central and southeastern Kosovo. Many refugees were also spread out and resettled in urban centers that increased their populations substantially. Western diplomats reporting in 1878 placed the number of refugee families at 60,000 families in Macedonia, with 60-70,000 refugees from Serbia spread out within the vilayet of Kosovo. The Ottoman governor of the Vilayet of Kosovo estimated in 1881 the refugees number to be around 65,000 with some resettled in the Sanjaks of Üsküp and Yeni Pazar.
In the late Ottoman period, Kosovo vilayet contained a diverse population of Muslim Albanians and Orthodox Serbs that was split along religious and ethnic lines.
Muslim Albanians formed the majority of the population in Kosovo vilayet that included an important part of the urban-professional and landowning classes of major towns. Western Kosovo was composed of 50,000 inhabitants and an area dominated by the Albanian tribal system with 600 Albanians dying per year from blood feuding. The Yakova highlands contained 8 tribes that were mainly Muslim and in the Luma area near Prizren there were 5 tribes, mostly Muslim. The population of the tribal areas were composed of Kosovar Malisors. The town of İpek had crypto-Christians who were of the Catholic faith.
Muslim Bosniaks whose native language was Slavic formed a sizable number of Kosovo vilayet's population and were concentrated mainly in Yenipazar sanjak. Circassian refugees who came from Russia were resettled by Ottoman authorities within Kosovo vilayet in 1864, numbering some 6,000 people by the 1890s.
In the northern half of Kosovo vilayet Orthodox Serbs were the largest Christian group and formed a majority within the eastern areas. Several thousand Aromanians inhabited Kosovo vilayet. Bulgarians lived in the southern half of Kosovo vilayet.
Ottoman provincial records for 1887 estimated that Albanians formed more than half of Kosovo vilayet's population concentrated in the sanjaks of İpek, Prizren and Priştine. In the sanjaks of Yenipazar, Taşlica and Üsküp, Albanians formed a smaller proportion of the population.
Note: Territory of Ottoman Kosovo Vilayet was quite different from modern-day Kosovo.

Early 20th century

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 Gjakova is furthermore defined as almost exclusively Albanian by Weigand.

Balkan Wars and First World War (Montenegro and Serbia)

Kosovo was part of the Ottoman Empire and following the Balkan Wars, the western part was included in Montenegro and the rest within Serbia. Citing Serbian sources, Noel Malcolm also states that in 1912 when Kosovo came under Serbian control, "the Orthodox Serb population at less than 25%" of Kosovo's entire population.
Beginning from 1912, Montenegro initiated its attempts at colonisation and enacted a law on the process during 1914 that aimed at expropriating 55,000 hectares of Albanian land and transferring it to 5,000 Montenegrin settlers. Some Serb colonisation of Kosovo took place during the Balkan Wars. Serbia undertook measures for colonisation by enacting a decree aimed at colonists within "newly liberated areas" that offered 9 hectares of land to families.

Yugoslav Interwar period

In the aftermath of the First World War Serbian control over Kosovo was restored and the Kingdom attempting to counteract Albanian separatism pursued a policy to alter the national and religious demographics of Kosovo and to Serbianise the area through colonisation. Kosovo was an area where Serbs were not a majority population and the state sought demographic change in those areas through land reform and a colonisation policy. A new decree issued in 1919 and later in 1920 restarted the colonisation process in places where Albanians lived in Kosovo and Vardar Macedonia.

1921 census

In the Yugoslav census of 1921, Albanians formed the majority population of Kosovo at around 64 percent with some 72 percent belonging to the Muslim faith. Government sponsored colonisation of Kosovo and Vardar Macedonia was initiated in 1920 when on 24 September the Assembly of the Yugoslav Kingdom passed the Decree on the Colonisation of the Southern Provinces of Yugoslavia. The decrees were intended as a reward to former soldiers and chetniks for their service during the Balkan Wars and World War One with incentives offered to settle in Kosovo that allowed them to claim between 5 and 10 hectares of land. The military veterans that settled in Kosovo were known as dobrovoljac and were a politically reliable group for the state. The colonisation process also entailed the arrival of Serbian bureaucrats to Kosovo along with their families. During 1919–1928 some 13,000 to 15,914 Serbian families came to live in Kosovo as stipulated to the conditions of the decrees. Between 1918 and 1923, as a result of state policies 30,000 and 40,000 mainly Muslim Albanians migrated to the Turkish regions of Izmir and Anatolia.

1931 census

By the 1930s, the efforts and attempts at increasing the Serb population had failed as the Yugoslav census showed Albanians were 62 percent of the Kosovan population. Colonisation had managed to partially change the demographic situation in Kosovo and the share of Albanians had decreased from 65 percent in 1921 to 61 percent in 1931 and Serbs increased from 28 percent to 32 percent. State authorities attempted to decrease the Albanian population through "forced migration", a process that grew during the decade. The second phase of Yugoslav colonisation began in 1931, when the Decree on the Colonisation of the Southern Regions was issued on 11 July. This phase of colonisation was considered unsuccessful because only 60 to 80 thousand people showed a willingness to become settlers and gained land, of whom many failed to follow through.
Based in Ankara, the data gathered for 1919-1940 by the Yugoslav Legation shows 215,412 Albanians migrated to Turkey, whereas data collected by the Yugoslav army shows that until 1939, 4,046 Albanian families went to live in Albania. For 1918 to 1921, Sabrina Ramet cites the estimate that the expulsions of Albanians reduced their numbers from around 800,000 – 1,000,000 within Kosovo down to some 439,500. Between 1923-1939, some 115,000 Yugoslav citizens migrated to Turkey and both Yugoslavian and Turkish sources state that Albanians composed most of that population group.
Albanian scholars from Albania and Kosovo place the number of Albanian refugees from 300,000 upward into the hundreds of thousands and state that they left Yugoslavia due to duress. Other estimates given by scholars outside the Balkans for Kosovan Albanians that emigrated during 1918–1941 are between 90,000–150,000 or 200,000–300,000. To date, access is unavailable to the Turkish Foreign Ministry archive regarding this issue and as such the total numbers of Albanians arriving to Turkey during the interwar period are difficult to determine.

World War II

During World War II, a large area of Kosovo was attached to Italian controlled Albania. Kosovo Albanians sought to redress the past policies of colonisation and slavisation and power relations between Albanians and Serbs were overturned in the new administration. It resulted in local Serbs and other Serbs that had arrived previously as part of the colonisation plan to be targeted by groups of armed Albanians. Campaigns aimed toward Serbs followed and included the destruction of property, killings, murders and deportations. The majority of Montenegrin and Serb settlers consisting of bureaucrats and dobrovoljac fled from Kosovo to Axis occupied Serbia or Montenegro. One estimate places the number of Serbs that were forced to leave at 70,000-100,000. Serbian historiography estimates that some 100,000 Serbs left Kosovo during 1941–1945. Other Serb sources place the number at 250,000.
A three-dimensional conflict ensued, involving inter-ethnic, ideological, and international affiliations, with the first being most important. Nonetheless, these conflicts were relatively low-level compared with other areas of Yugoslavia during the war years, with one Serb historian estimating that 3,000 Albanians and 4,000 Serbs and Montenegrins were killed, and two others estimating war dead at 12,000 Albanians and 10,000 Serbs and Montenegrins. An official investigation conducted by the Yugoslav government in 1964 recorded nearly 8,000 war-related fatalities in Kosovo between 1941 and 1945, 5,489 of whom were Serb and Montenegrin and 2,177 of whom were Albanian.

Communist Yugoslavia

Following the Second World War and establishment of communist rule in Yugoslavia, the colonisation programme was discontinued, as President Tito wanted to avoid sectarian and ethnic conflicts. Tito enacted a temporary decree in March 1945 that banned the return of colonists, which included some Chetniks and the rest that left during the war seeking refuge. Two weeks later Tito issued another decree and followed it with a law in August 1945 that permitted a conditional return for a minority of the colonists. In total, cases of return numbered 11,168, with 4,829 cases confirmed, 5,744 cases partially confirmed alongside 595 cases being denied. A small proportion of the previous colonist population came back to Kosovo and repossessed land, with a greater part of their number later leaving for other areas of Yugoslavia.
After the Second World War and the Yugoslavia-Albania split, Yugoslav authorities attempted to downplay links between Albanians of Albania and Kosovo and to implement a policy of "Turkification" that encouraged Turkish language education and emigration to Turkey among Albanians. In 1953, an agreement was reached between Tito and Mehmet Fuat Köprülü, the foreign minister of Turkey that promoted the emigration of Albanians to Anatolia. Forced migration to Turkey increased and numbers cited by Klejda Mulaj for 1953–1957 are 195,000 Albanians leaving Yugoslavia and for 1966, some 230,000 people. Historian Noel Malcolm placed the number of Albanians leaving for Turkey at 100,000 between 1953–1966. Factors involved in the upsurge of migration were intimidation and pressure toward the Albanian population to leave through a campaign headed by Yugoslav police chief Aleksandar Ranković that officially was stated as aimed at curbing Albanian nationalism. Kosovo under the control of Ranković was viewed by Turkey as the individual that would implement "the Gentleman's Agreement". At the same time, a new phase of colonisation occurred in the region as Montenegrin and Serb families were installed in Kosovo. The situation ended in 1966 with the removal of Ranković from his position.

Censuses

1948 census

727,820 total inhabitants
808,141 total inhabitants
963,959 total inhabitants
1,243,693 total inhabitants
1,584,558 total inhabitants
Registered population
Official Yugoslav statistical results, almost all Albanians and some Roma and Muslims boycotted the census following a call by Ibrahim Rugova to boycott Serbian institutions.
359,346 total inhabitants
By ethnicity:
Statistical office of Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija estimated total number of Albanians, Muslims and Roma.
1,956,196 total inhabitants
By ethnicity:
The corrections should not be 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." .
In September 1993, the Bosniak parliament returned their historical name Bosniaks. Some Kosovar Muslims have started using this term to refer to themselves since.

Milošević government (1990s)

By 1992, the situation in Kosovo deteriorated and politicians from both sides were at an impasse toward solutions for the future of the region. Concerns increased among Serbs and an organisation was created called the Serb Block for Colonizing Kosovo in Pristina that aimed to get state officials based in Belgrade to raise the Serb population within Kosovo. As such, the state made available loans for building apartments and homes along with employment opportunities for Montenegrins and Serbs that chose to relocate to the region. In March 1992, nearly 3,000 people from the Serb minority in Albania had emigrated to Kosovo after accepting the government offer. At the time, the government under President Slobodan Milošević pursued colonisation amidst a situation of financial difficulties and limited resources. Laws were passed by the parliament of Serbia that sought to change the power balance in Kosovo relating to the economy, demography and politics. The parliament of Serbia on 11 January 1995 passed the Decree for Colonisation of Kosovo of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It outlined government benefits for Serbs who desired to go and live in Kosovo with loans to build homes or purchase other dwellings and offered free plots of land. Few Serbs took up the offer due to the worsening situation in Kosovo at the time.
Around 10,000 Serb refugees from Krajina and over 2000 from Bosnia were resettled in Kosovo, due to the Yugoslav Wars. In 1995, the government attempted to alter the ethnic balance of the region through the planned resettlement of 100,000, later reduced to 20,000 Serbian refugees from Krajina in Croatia to Kosovo. Some of the Serb refugees opposed going to Kosovo. In 1996, official government statistics placed the number of refugees in Kosovo at 19,000. Most of the Serb refugees left thereafter and a few remained. In early 1997, the number of resettled Serb refugees in Kosovo was 4,000 and 6,000 in early 1999. As the sociopolitical situation deteriorated, Kosovo Albanians numbering some 300,000 fled during this period for Western Europe. After the outbreak of conflict between the Milošević government and the Kosovo Liberation Army, in early 1997, an estimated 9,000 Serb refugees and 20,000 local Serbs left Kosovo.

Kosovo War (1999)

During the Kosovo war, Serb forces expelled between 800,000 – 1,000,000 Albanians from Kosovo employing tactics such as confiscating personal documents to make it difficult or prevent any future return. Kosovo Albanians later returned following NATO intervention and the end of the war.
In 1999 more than 11,000 deaths were reported to the office of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia prosecutor Carla Del Ponte. Around 10,317 civilians in total were killed during the war, of whom 8,676 were Albanians, 1,196 Serbs and 445 Roma and others in addition to 3,218 killed members of armed formations., some 3,000 people were still missing, of which 2,500 are Albanian, 400 Serbs and 100 Roma.
In the days after the Yugoslav Army withdrew, over 80,000 Serb and other non-Albanians civilians were expelled from Kosovo. Estimates of the number of Serbs who left when Serbian forces departed from Kosovo vary from 65,000 to 250,000. In addition, less than one hundred of the Serb refugees from Croatia remained in Kosovo.

Modern period

2011 census

In the 2011 census there were 1,739,825 inhabitants. ECMI "calls for caution when referring to the 2011 census", due to the boycott by Serb-majority municipalities in North Kosovo and the partial boycott by Serb and Roma in southern Kosovo. According to the data, this is the ethnic composition of Kosovo: