Accurate or reliable data for historical populations of Armenians is scarce, but various scholars and institutions have proposed estimates for different periods.
The Armenian National Atlas (2007) estimated a total of between 2.5 and 3.5 million Armenians in the first century BC.[1] In the 1910s, Jacques de Morgan and Isaac Don Levine estimated the population of the short-lived empire of Tigranes the Great (r. 95 – 55 BC) at 25 and 30 million, respectively.[2][3]
Agathangelos wrote that more than 4,000,000 men, women and children and more than 150,000 soldiers (a total of 4,150,000) were baptized by Gregory the Illuminator during the Christianization of Armenia in the early fourth century.[4][5] Edmond Schütz found the figure for the population of Greater Armenia “obviously exaggerated.”[6] Another early medieval historian, Movses Khorenatsi, wrote in a widely quoted passage that Armenians are “very restricted in numbers”.[7][8][9]Elizabeth Redgate argues that the population of historical Armenia may never have exceeded 5 or 6 million as most of its extent was not fit for settlement.[10]
Serob Poghosyan estimated Armenia's population during the 9th-11th century, when much of Armenia was ruled by the Bagratids, between 5 and 6 million.[11] The Armenian National Atlas estimated that around 6 million Armenians lived within the Armenian highlands (Armenian plateau) by the early 13th century, prior to the Mongol invasion, with another million Armenians living outside the traditional homeland.[1]
19th and early 20th century
August von Haxthausen quoted Catholicos Nerses V (then archbishop) as having told him in 1843 that he can assert with confidence the existence of more than eight million Armenians worldwide, including 30,000 Catholic Armenians in the Russian Caucasus.[12]
In his 1847 book Lands of the Bible: Visited and Described, the Scottish missionary John Wilson estimated the total Armenian population at 2.5 million, with 1 million in the Russian Empire, 1 million in the Ottoman Empire and 0.5 million in Persia and "other distant lands." In the same book, he quoted the figures provided by Lucas Balthazar, the "intelligent editor" of the Smyrna-based Armenian newspaper The Dawn of Ararat.[a] Balthazar estimated 5 million Armenians overall, with 2 million in Russia, 2 million in Turkey and 1 million in Persia, India and elsewhere.[13]
Armenian population worldwide, estimated by Édouard Dulaurier (c. 1850). Total: 4,000,000[14]
Ottoman Empire (62.5%)
Russian Empire (30%)
Persia (3.75%)
Austrian Empire (0.625%)
South and Southeast Asia (0.625%)
Elsewhere (2.5%)
Robert Sears wrote in 1855 that about half of Armenians live in Armenia, while the remainder are scattered elsewhere: "They are found all over western Asia; about two hundred thousand are in Constantinople and its vicinity; numbers are in various parts of the Russia empire, Hungary, and Italy; some in Africa and America; and a large number in India, chiefly in the great marts of Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta."[15]
The 9th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1875) cited Édouard Dulaurier's estimates c. 1850: "approximately four millions of Armenians in the world, of whom 2,500,000 were inhabitants of the Ottoman empire, 1,200,000 of the Russian empire, 25,000 in the empire of Austria, 150,000 in Persia and Azerbaijan, 25,000 in continental India and the Archipelago of Asia, and the remaining 100,000 scattered in various countries."[14]
In his 1862 book The Turkish Empire. In its Relations with Christianity and Civilization, Richard Robert Madden wrote that the Armenian population worldwide is estimated at 4 million, of whom an estimated 2,400,000 in the Ottoman Empire ("an approximate computation, and probably below the truth"), 900,000 in the Russian Empire, 600,000 in Persia, 40,000 in India and "other realms of Asia", and 60,000 in "various European countries."[16]
In 1876 John Buchan Telfer, quoted the figures provided by Garabed Ghazarosian in his 1873 The Universal Year Book, which estimated a total of 4.2 million Armenians worldwide, including 2.5 million in Turkish dominions, 1.5 million in Russia, 34,000 in Persia, 14,600 in Austria, 15,000 in England, India and other British possessions, 8,400 in Romania, 8,000 in Egypt, and 120,000 in other countries.[17][18] In 1891, Telfer reported to the Royal Society of Arts that "most authorities" appear to agree that the total Armenian population worldwide amounts to around 5 million, with most "scattered in their own land and in adjoining territories" and nearly half a million "settled in distant parts."[19]
In 1891 French geographer Élisée Reclus wrote that while "usually estimated at three and even four millions," the total number of Armenians "would seem scarcely to exceed two millions." He estimated the "probable" number of Armenians as follows: 840,000 in Caucasia and European Russia, 760,000 in Asiatic Turkey, and 250,000 in European Turkey, 150,000 in Persia, and 60,000 elsewhere, with the total at 2,060,000. He estimated no less than 200,000 Armenians in Constantinople and noted that Tiflis held the second largest Armenian population of any city.[20]
At the 1893Parliament of the World's Religions, Armenian activist Minas Tcheraz [hy] claimed that there were 5.1 million Armenians in total, including 80,000 Catholics and 20,000 Protestants.[21]
In his 1896 book Story of Turkey and Armenia Reverend James Wilson Pierce estimated 2.4 million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, 1.25 million in the Russian Empire, 150,000 in Persia, 100,000 in Europe and 5,000 in the United States.[22]
Adrian Fortescue wrote in 1916: "There are said to be about three and a half or four million Armenians in the world—1,300,000 in Turkey, 1,200,000 in Russia, 50,000 in Persia, and the rest dispersed throughout the world. Of these about three quarters belong to the Monophysite ("Gregorian") Church."[23]
Armenian population worldwide, estimated by Malachia Ormanian (1911). Total: 3,508,950
Ottoman Empire (48.7%)
Russian Empire (45%)
Elsewhere (6.3%)
Malachia Ormanian, a scholar and former Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople, estimated the population of Christian Armenians by the dioceses of the Armenian Apostolic Church in his 1911 book The Church of Armenia.[29] It is the most detailed population distribution estimates available prior to the Armenian genocide. Robert Hewsen wrote that "Ormanian's figures appear moderate and reasonable, although this does not necessarily make them precise."[30]Levon Marashlian notes that "the purpose of Ormanian's book was not to provide comprehensive population statistics" and that "his numbers for [Armenian] Protestants and Catholics may be even more incomplete" than for Armenian Apostolics.[31]
The United States Department of State summarized the populations of Armenians in a November 1922 document entitled "Approximate number of Armenians in the world" (NARA 867.4016/816). Of the total 3,004,000 Armenians, 817,873 were refugees from Turkey "based upon information furnished by the British Embassy, Constantinople, and by the agents of the Near East Relief Society, in 1921. The total given does not include the able-bodied Armenians, who are retained by the Kemalists, nor the women and children,—approximately 95,000,—according to the League of Nations-who have been forced to embrace Islam."
The distribution of Armenians in the Soviet Union according to the 1979 census
Armenian SSR (65.6%)
Azerbaijan SSR (11.5%)
Georgian SSR (10.8%)
Russian SFSR (8.8%)
Rest (3.3%)
Precise figures are available for the number of Armenians in the Soviet Union and its constituent republics because all censuses in the USSR enumerated people by ethnicity.
^Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabakh Republic is a disputed area. It is de facto independent, but is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan.
^ The political status of Abkhazia is disputed. Having unilaterally declared independence from Georgia in 1992, Abkhazia is formally recognised as an independent state by 5 UN member states (two other states previously recognised it but then withdrew their recognition), while the remainder of the international community recognizes it as as de jure Georgian territory. Georgia continues to claim the area as its own territory, designating it as Russian-occupied territory.
^de Morgan, Jacques (1917). Essai sur les nationalités (in French). Paris: Berger-Levrault. p. 115. Or, leurs ambitions ne vont nulle- ment jusqu'à désirer comme frontières les limites du royaume de Tigrane le Grand. L'Arménie comptait alors 25 millions d'habitants, tandis qu'aujourd'hui cette nation, éprouvée par tant de massacres, d'émigrations et de conversions forcées, ne comprend plus que tout au plus 4 millions d'âmes, dont environ la moitié habite des territoires qui, politiquement, font partie de l'Empire du Tsar.
^Agathangelos (1976). History of the Armenians. Translation, introduction and commentary by Robert W. Thomson (First ed.). Albany: State University of New York Press. pp. lxvii–lxviii, 369371. ISBN0-87395-323-1. Gregory now prepared to baptise the people of Armenia. [...] That day over 150,000 soldiers were baptised, and during the following week over 4,000,000 people.
^Thomson, Robert W. (1994). "Agathangelos". In Greppin, John A. C. (ed.). Studies in Classical Armenian Literature. Delmar, New York: Caravan Books. pp. 22. ISBN9780882065120.
^Wilson, John (1847). The Lands of the Bible: Visited and Described in an Extensive Journey Undertaken with Special Reference to the Promotion of Biblical Research and the Advancement of the Cause of Philanthropy, Vol. II. London: William Whyte & Co. pp. 479-480.
^Telfer, J. Buchan (1876). The Crimea and Transcaucasia, being the narrative of a journey in the Kouban, in Gouria, Georgia, Armenia, Ossety, Imeritia, Swannety, and Mingrelia, and in the Tauric Range. Volume I. London: Henry S. King & Co. p. 256.
^Tcheraz, Minas (1893). "The Armenian Church". In Barrows, John Henry (ed.). The World's Parliament of Religions Volume II. Chicago: The Parliament Publishing Company. p. 928. ...the Armenian Church, which numbers even now 5,000,000 faithful souls, scattered over all parts of the globe. Etchmiadzin is revered not only by the sons of this church, but also by the 80,000 Armenians who have entered within the pale of the Church of Rome, the 20,000 who have become Protestants, and a small number which has adhered to the Greek orthodox.
^Pierce, James Wilson (1896). Story of Turkey and Armenia. Baltimore: R. H. Woodward Company. p. 14.
^Fraser, John Foster (1907). Red Russia. New York: The John Lane Company. p. 212. ...the Armenians , intellectual superiors of the peoples south of the Caucasus range, number about two millions...
^Hovannisian, R. G. (2005). "Genocide and independence, 1914-21". In Herzig, Edmund; Kurkchiyan, Marina (eds.). The Armenians: Past and Present in the Making of National Identity. London: Routledge. p. 90. ISBN9781135798376.
^Кавказский календарь на 1917 год [Caucasian calendar for 1917] (in Russian) (72nd ed.). Tiflis: Tipografiya kantselyarii Ye.I.V. na Kavkaze, kazenny dom. 1917. pp. 178–237. Archived from the original on 4 November 2021.
^"The world upward trend is further confirmed by the break-down given in 1966 by the Erevan periodical Hayreniki Dzayn (summarized by Dekmejian in Soviet Studies of Glasgow University, 1968). Here we find a world-wide total of five and a half million Armenians, sub-divided as follows..."; quoted in Lang, David Marshall; Walker, Christopher J. (1987) [1976]. The Armenians(PDF). Minority Rights Group. p. 12. ISBN0-946690-43-X. Archived from the original(PDF) on 18 September 2019.
^Eremian, Suren (1987). "Հայերը [Armenians]". Armenian Soviet Encyclopedia Volume XIII (in Armenian). Yerevan. pp. 27.((cite book)): CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^"U.S. Census Bureau History: World War I Armistice". census.gov. United States Census Bureau. November 2018. Archived from the original on 21 March 2021. The 1920 Census was the first to collect nativity and ancestry information from people tracing their roots to these new nations. For example, in 1920, the census found that ... 36,628 people were born in Armenia.
^Aswald, Barbara C. (1971). Property Control and Social Strategies in Settlers in a Middle Eastern Plain. University of Michigan. p. 11. ISBN978-0-932206-42-8.
^Zohry, Ayman (July 2005). "Armenians in Egypt"(PDF). XXV IUSSP International Population Conference. International Union for the Scientific Study of Population. p. 3. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2021-05-02.
Ottoman Empire
Russian Empire
Persia
United States
Great Britain, 
France, 
Belgium, 
Switzerland)
Bulgaria
Egypt
Romania
Austria-Hungary
India & Indochina
Dutch East Indies
Greece
