Demographics
As in other cities of the Balkans that went under Ottoman urban development, the population largely converted to Islam in the 16th century, although part of the former Catholic converts professed a form of crypto-Christianity (laramanë). An aspect of this new urban character is evidenced by the demographics of workshop owners; 227 of 246 workshops of Prizren were run by Muslims in 1571. As the Catholic population dwindled prelatic missions and reports in the region increased. Marino Bizzi, Archbishop of Antivari, in his 1610 report stated that Prizren had 8.600 large houses. The Christian part of the city was formed by Catholics (30 households), whose churhces had been reduced to two (from a total of 80), and Orthodox, who outnumbered them and spoke the Dalmatian language. In 1623, Pjetër Mazreku, who in 1624 succeeded Bizzi as Archbishop of Antivari, reported that the city was populated mostly by Muslims, who numbered 12,000 and were mostly Albanians. The Catholics of the city spoke Albanian and Slavic and 200 of them were Albanians. The Orthodox element was composed of 600 Serbs. In 1857, Russian Slavist Alexander Hilferding's publications place the Muslim families at 3,000, the Orthodox ones at 900 and the Catholics at around 100 families. The Ottoman census of 1876, placed the total population at around 44,000.
| Demographics | |||||||||||||
| Year | Albanians | % | Bosniaks | % | Serb | % | Turk | % | Roma | % | Others | % | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1991 cens. | 132,591 | 75.58 | 19,423 | 11.1 | 10,950 | 6.24 | 7,227 | 4.1 | 3,96 3 | 2.3 | 1,259 | 0.7 | 175,413 |
| 1998 | n/a | n/a | 38,500 | n/a | 8,839 | n/a | 12,250 | n/a | 4,500 | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a |
| January 2000 | 181,531 | 76.9 | 37,500 | 15.9 | 258 | 0.1 | 12,250 | 5.2 | 4,500 | 1.9 | n/a | n/a | 236,000 |
| March 2001 | 181,748 | 81.9 | 22,000 | 9.9 | 252 | 0.1 | 12,250 | 5.5 | 5,424 | 2.4 | n/a | n/a | 221,674 |
| May 2002 | 182,000 | 79.6 | 29,369 | 12.8 | 197 | 0.09 | 11,965 | 5.2 | 4,400 | 1.9 | 550 | 0.25 | 228,481 |
| December 2002 | 180,176 | 81.6 | 21,266 | 9.6 | 221 | 0.09 | 14,050 | 6.4 | 5,148 | 2.3 | n/a | n/a | 221,374 |
According to the 1991 census conducted by the Yugoslav authorities, the municipality of Prizren had a population of 200,584 citizens:
- 157,518 (78.53%) Albanians
- 11,371 (5.67%) Serbs and Montenegrins
- other'
According to the same census, the city of Prizren had 92,303 citizens.
Just before the Kosovo War in 1998, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe estimated the population of the municipality of Prizren:
- Albanians 78%
- Serbs 5%
- others 17%
According to a United Nations estimate in 2003, the city had about 124,000 citizens, most being ethnic Albanians. According to the World Gazetteer, the city only had 131,247 residents in 2010.
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