Van Province

Van Province (Turkish: Van ili, Kurdish: Parezgêha Wanê, Armenian: Վանի մարզ) is a province and metropolitan municipality in the Eastern Anatolian region of Turkey, between Lake Van and the Iranian border. Its area is 20,921 km², and its population is 1,128,749 (2022). Its adjacent provinces are Bitlis to the west, Siirt to the southwest, Şırnak and Hakkâri to the south, and Ağrı to the north. The capital of the province is the city of Van, with a population of 525,016 as of 2022. The second-largest city is Erciş, with 92,945 inhabitants in 2022. The province was part of ancient province of Vaspurakan and is considered to be one of the cradles of Armenian civilization. Before the Armenian genocide, Van Province was one of the six Armenian vilayets. A majority of the population of the province is Kurdish and considered part of Turkish Kurdistan.

Today, the province is mainly populated by Kurds and considered part of Turkish Kurdistan. The province had a significant Christian Armenian population until the genocide in 1915.

In the 1881–1882 Ottoman census, the sanjak of Van had a population of 113,964 of which 52.1% was Armenian and 47.9% Muslim. In the 1914 census, the sanjak had a population of 172,171 of which 63.6% was Muslim and 35.7% Armenian. The remaining population was Assyrians at 0.7%.

In the first Turkish census in 1927, Kurdish was the most-spoken first language in Van Province (which included Hakkari Province until 1945) at 76.6% while Turkish remained the second most-spoken first language at 23.1%. Other languages enumerated included Hebrew at 0.2% and Arabic at 0.1%. In the same census, Muslims comprised 99.8% of the population and the remaining 0.2% being Jews.

In the subsequent census in 1935, Kurdish stood at 72.4% and Turkish at 27.2%. Other smaller languages included Circassian at 0.2%, Hebrew at 0.1%, Arabic at 0.1%.

Muslims remained the largest denomination at 99.8%, Jews stood at 0.1% and Christians at 0.1%. In 1945, Kurdish stood at 59.9% and Turkish at 39.6%, while 99.9% of the population was Muslim. In 1955, Kurdish and Turkish remained the two most spoken languages at 66.4% and 33.1%, respectively.

This area was the heartland of Armenians, who lived in these areas from the time of Hayk in the 3rd millennium BCE right up to the late 19th century when the Ottoman Empire seized all the land from the natives. In the 9th century BC the Van area was the center of the Urartian kingdom. The area was a major Armenian population center. The region came under the control of the Armenian Orontids in the 7th century BC and later Persians in the mid-6th century BC. By the early 2nd century BC it was part of the Kingdom of Armenia. It became an important center during the reign of the Armenian king, Tigranes II, who founded the city of Tigranakert in the 1st century BC.

With the victory of the Seljuk Turks at the Battle of Malazgirt in 1071, just north of Lake Van, it became a part of the Seljuq Empire and later the Ottoman Empire during their century long wars with their neighboring Iranian Safavid arch rivals, in which Sultan Selim I managed to conquer the area over the latter. The area continued to be contested and was passed on between the Ottoman Empire and the Safavids (and their subsequent successors, the Afsharids and Qajars) for many centuries until the Battle of Chaldiran which set the borders till this day. During the 19th century it was reorganized as Van Vilayet.