Population and Ethnic Demographics
As with the rest of the Ottoman empire in the 19th century, Eastern Rumelia was ethnically mixed with Bulgarian majority of 72.3%(census from 1880). The earliest information on the ethnic demographics of Eastern Rumelia, before the first census was conducted, comes from ethnographic maps of the Balkans by Western cartographers.
There is little information on the actual population numbers of the different ethnic groups before 1878. According to a British report before the 1877–1878 war, the non-Muslim population (which were mostly Bulgarians) of Eastern Rumelia, was about 60% which proportion grew due to the flight and emigration of Muslims during and after the war. The results of the first Regional Assembly elections of 17 October 1879 show a predominantly Bulgarian character: Of the 36 elected deputies, 31 were Bulgarians (86.1%), 3 were Greeks (8.3%) and two were Turks (5.6%). The ethnic statistics from the censuses of 1880 and 1884 show a Bulgarian majority in the province. In the discredited census of 1880, out of total population of 815,951 people some 590,000 (72.3%) self-identified as Bulgarians, 158,000 (19.4%) as Turks, 19,500 (2.4%) as Roma, and 48,000 (5.9%) belonged to other ethnicities, notably Greeks, Armenians and Jews. The repetition of the census in 1884 returned similar data: 70.0% Bulgarians, 20.6% Turks, 2.8% Roma and 6.7% others.
The Greek inhabitants of Eastern Rumelia were concentrated on the coast, where they were strong in numbers, and certain cities in the interior such as Plovdiv, where they formed a substantial minority. Most of the Greek population of the region was exchanged with Bulgarians from the Greek provinces of Macedonia and Thrace in the aftermath of the Balkan Wars and World War I. As of 2001, there are about 3400 Greeks in Bulgaria, and about 4100 Sarakatsani.
Eastern Rumelia was also inhabited by foreign nationals, most notably Austrians, Czechs, Hungarians, French people and Italians.
The ethnic composition of the population of Eastern Rumelia, according to the provincial census taken in 1884, was the following:
| Ethnicity (1884 census) | Population | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Bulgarians | 681,734 | 70.0% |
| Turks | 200,489 | 20.6% |
| Greeks | 53,028 | 5.4% |
| Roma (Gypsies) | 27,190 | 2.8% |
| Jews | 6,982 | 0.7% |
| Armenians | 1,865 | 0.2% |
| Total | 975,030 | 100% |
The population's ethnic composition in the Bulgarian provinces of Pazardzhik, Plovdiv, Stara Zagora, Haskovo, Sliven, Yambol and Burgas, according to the 2001 census is the following:
| Ethnicity (2001 census) | Population | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Bulgarians | 2,068,787 | 83.7% |
| Turks | 208,530 | 8.4% |
| Roma (Gypsies) | 154,004 | 6.2% |
| Armenians | 5,080 | 0.2% |
| Russians | 4,840 | 0.2% |
| Greeks | 1,398 | 0.1% |
| Jews | 251 | |
| Others | 8,293 | 0.3% |
| Unspecified | 21,540 | 0.9% |
| Total | 2,472,723 | 100% |
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