Demographics
At the beginning of the 20th century it reportedly had an area of 15,440 square miles (40,000 km2), while the preliminary results of the first Ottoman census of 1885 (published in 1908) gave the population as 376,297. It should be noted that the accuracy of the population figures ranges from "approximate" to "merely conjectural" depending on the region from which they were gathered.
Based on the official 1914 Ottoman Census the population of Van province consisted of 179,422 Muslims and 67,797 Armenians. The Ottoman Census figures include only male citizens, excluding women and children. According to Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople, the corrected estimates for Van province (including women and children) was; 313,000 Muslims, 130,000 Armenians, and 65,000 others, including Syriac Christians and Nestorians.
Read more about this topic: Van Vilayet