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19th Century
19th century data about the population of Kosovo 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.
Map published by French ethnographer G. Lejean in 1861 shows that Albanians lived on around 57% Kosovo 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.
Modern Serbian sources estimated that around 400,000 Serbs were cleansed out of the Vilayet of Kosovo between 1876 and 1912.
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:
- 182,650 Albanians (47.88%)
- 166,700 Serbs (43.7%)
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 Ni? (located north-east of contemporary Kosovo) 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 (muhaxhirë) 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 (Gjakovë) 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 (highlanders).The town of Peja 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 Peja, Prizren and Prishtine. In the sanjaks of Yenipazar, Taslica and Üsküp, Albanians formed a smaller proportion of the population.