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1455: Turkish cadastral tax census (defter) 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:
Ottoman Occupation
Balkan Wars and World War I
1929 Serbs: 61% Others 39%. 1
1941 "Essentially unchanged". 1
World War II
Creation of a fascist-nazi puppet state Greater Albania, massacres of some 10,000 Serbs, ethnic cleansing of about 100,000, settling of 70,000 of Albanians from Albania;
1948: 498,242 Albanians or 65% 5
1953: 524,559 Albanians or 65% 5
1961: 646,604 Albanians or 67% 5
1971: 916,168 Albanians or 74% 5
Albanians take ever-increasing control of Autonomous province with the introduction of the 1974 Constitution.
1981: 1,226,736 Albanians 77%; Serbs 13%; Total 1,584,440. 5
Official Yugoslav statistical results, almost all Albanians and some Roma, Slavic Muslims boyott the census as demanded by the politician Ibrahim Rugova.
1991
359,346 Total population
1,956,196 Total population (corrected from 359,346)
1968-1989: Ethnic Albanian Rule
Under Albanian rule in the province, 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. 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).1989-1999: Centralized Yugoslav Control
Newly strong Yugoslav Central Government reasserts control over Kosovo in 1989.
Official Yugoslav statistical corrections and projections, with the help of previous census results (1948-1981)NATO Occupation
In 1999 NATO occupies Serbian province, 360,000 non-Albanians are ethnically cleansed and some 200,000 Albanians settle from Albania.
2002 UNapproximation. Total population 1.7 to 1.9 mn. 4
- 88% Albanians (1,496,000 - 1,672,000)
- 6% Serbs (102,000 - 114,000)
- 3% Muslim Slavs (51,000 to 57,000)
- 2% Roma (34,000 - 38,000)
- 1% Turks (17,000 - 19,000).
References
- 1 The Serbian Information Centre
- 2 The International Criminal Tribunal For The Former Yugoslavia
- 3 Kosovo
- 4 UNMIK Fact Sheet on Kosovo
- 5 Official Yugoslav censa results 1948-1981

