15th-17th Century Çorum: Population, Government and Sanjak

Çorum’s general history — its old name, conquest, and eventual status as a province — is covered on the History page; its Ottoman-era markets, guilds and housing are covered on Guilds, Bazaars and Houses in Ottoman Çorum. This page, based on the third part of Çorum Tarihi (Turkish, “History of Çorum”), written by Suraiya Faroqhi (p. 93-114), covers Çorum’s population, its sanjak-kaza structure, and its administrative officials in the 15th-17th centuries. According to the book, the most reliable sources for this period are the Ottoman tax census registers (tahrir defterleri) and the 1595-97 Çorum court register (şeriyye sicili); for the first half of the 17th century the book relies on the accounts of Evliya Çelebi and Kâtip Çelebi, and it found no adequate source at all for 1650-1800 (Çorum Tarihi, p. 95-96).

Rapid growth of the urban population

Census registers recorded the tax-paying population, village by village and neighbourhood by neighbourhood, at intervals; once bachelors (mücerred) are subtracted, the remaining number of households is multiplied by an average of five to estimate total population (Çorum Tarihi, p. 96-97). The oldest surviving Çorum census (860 AH/1455-56), prepared by Umur Bey under Mehmed the Conqueror, records six neighbourhoods and 438 tax-paying individuals, suggesting a total population no greater than about 2,200. At the time, the region’s dominant city was unquestionably Tokat (tax-paying population ~3,000); Çorum ranked only third-tier alongside Samsun, though it was still a settlement of some substance compared to small market towns such as Zile, Taşköprü or Boyabat (Çorum Tarihi, p. 97-98).

Per the book, Çorum grew extraordinarily fast between 1455 and the early years of Süleyman the Magnificent’s reign (1520s), reaching the size of Merzifon and Kastamonu; the settling of the region’s nomadic population is cited as one driver of this growth. By the reign of Murad III (late 16th century), Çorum’s population had grown by roughly 100 percent over fifty years, narrowly overtaking even Amasya; by this point, after Tokat, the leading centres of north-central Anatolia were Çorum, Kastamonu and Amasya (Çorum Tarihi, p. 98-99). Alongside natural growth, migrants fleeing the Ottoman-Persian wars in eastern Anatolia also contributed to the town’s expansion; the existence of a “Şarkiyan” (easterners’) neighbourhood in Çorum by the late 16th century is a trace of this migration (Çorum Tarihi, p. 99). The town’s population was almost entirely Muslim: no non-Muslims appear in the registers from Mehmed the Conqueror’s reign, only a small 14-household Jewish community is recorded in the early 16th century, and even this group had vanished from the records by 1576-77 (Çorum Tarihi, p. 99). The book states that by the end of the 16th century Çorum’s population approached 10,000, making it “foremost among mid-sized towns” by the standards of the day; the figure of 4,300 houses (equating to roughly 17,000-22,000 people) reported by Evliya Çelebi, who passed through Çorum in the mid-17th century, is treated with caution in the book given the instability of the Celali rebellions of that era (Çorum Tarihi, p. 99-100).

Population of the sanjak

According to a summary register from the early years of Süleyman the Magnificent’s reign, the sanjak of Çorum had roughly 21,216-21,670 tax-paying individuals, of whom about 6,840 were bachelors and the rest married. Using various calculation methods, the book estimates the sanjak’s total population at around 80,000 at the start of Süleyman’s reign (Çorum Tarihi, p. 100-101). Per Huri İslamoğlu-İnan’s research, the population of the kazas of Çorumlu, Demirli Karahisar and Katar roughly doubled between 1520-30 and 1576 (Çorum Tarihi, p. 101). Drawing on late-16th-century avarızhane (tax-unit) lists, the book suggests the sanjak’s tax-paying population was 35,000-50,000, with a total population somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 — though it stresses the wide margin of error in these estimates (Çorum Tarihi, p. 102-103).

From vilayet to sanjak: the evolving administrative structure

In the census register from Mehmed the Conqueror’s reign, Çorum appears only as “nefs-i şehir” (“the town itself”) and, in the terminology of the time, as the centre of a “vilayet” — a small administrative unit close in meaning to today’s nahiye; the word “sanjak” never appears in the document, so it is unknown whether the town was a sanjak centre in the second half of the 15th century (Çorum Tarihi, p. 103). A summary register from the early years of Süleyman the Magnificent’s reign, however, shows Çorum as the centre of a sanjak comprising the kazas of Çorumlu, İskilip, Osmancık, Demirli Karahisar and Katar, each with its own kadı (Çorum Tarihi, p. 103-104). Although a 1590 register lists the kaza of Osmancık under the sanjak of Canik (Samsun), the 1595-96 court register adds three further kazas — Saz, Sakız and Mihmadselam — while a 1637-38 tax register lists eight kazas in total: Çorum, İskilip, Katar, Osmancık, Demirli Karahisar, Saz, Sakız and Mihmadselam. The book notes that İskilip and Osmancık remained under Çorum throughout this period, and that neighbouring Amasya never managed to pull any part of the sanjak toward itself — evidence, in the book’s view, that Çorum was a growing centre through the 16th and early 17th centuries (Çorum Tarihi, p. 104-105).

The sancakbeyi, kadı, muhtesip and dizdar

The sanjak’s senior official, the sancakbeyi (sanjak governor), combined military duties (mustering the timar-holding cavalry for campaign, protecting the sanjak from bandits) with financial ones; his periodic inspection tours, known as “devre,” were a frequent source of villager complaints. Around 1595-96, sancakbeyi Cafer Bey is recorded as having taken 2,400 kilos of barley, 700 cartloads of firewood and straw from Çorum and nearby villages without payment; the townspeople complained to Istanbul, and the kadı found him liable for a debt of 62,000 akçe (Çorum Tarihi, p. 105-107). The kadı (judge) was the sanjak’s second most influential figure; in the late 16th century, Çorum’s kadıs appear to have generally been wealthy property owners — Mehmet Efendi, appointed kadı in 1595, quickly bought two houses and a garden in the Kubbeli neighbourhood (Çorum Tarihi, p. 107-108). The person most often mentioned in the town’s daily affairs of the period, however, was the “şehir kethüdası” (town steward) Yusuf b. Maksud, who took on a wide range of roles, from managing a pious foundation and finding tenants to mediating lawsuits between the townspeople and the sancakbeyi (Çorum Tarihi, p. 108).

The muhtesip, responsible for overseeing the market, received no salary; after paying an annual fee to the sancakbeyi, he kept the surplus as income. This fee rose from 10,000 akçe at the start of Süleyman’s reign to 70,000 akçe in 1576-77 (combined with the kapan and damga taxes), and to 115,000 akçe by 1596 — a rise the book attributes both to inflation and to genuine growth in Çorum’s market trade (Çorum Tarihi, p. 108-109). The dizdar (castle commander), a man named Yusuf, was accused during the Celali rebellions of having freed the bandit leader Canfedaoğlu from the castle and of involvement in the disappearance of gunpowder from its stores; a similar episode befell the dizdar of İskilip a few years later. Following these incidents, Çorum’s notables funded, with 120,000 akçe from the treasury, an additional outer wall for the castle, its construction overseen by a specialist sent from the capital, Behzad Çavuş (Çorum Tarihi, p. 109-110).

The Ottoman state’s material demands on daily life

The Çorum court register records in detail the extraordinary taxes and services demanded of the town during the 1595-97 Eğri campaign: exemption from campaign duty for low-income cavalrymen in exchange for a fee; barley and straw collected for the state’s camel trains (at least 35 camel caravans — over 200 animals — in 1595-96, requiring 3,000 kilos of barley and 3,000 sacks of straw); ship’s biscuit and clarified butter for the navy (the latter’s official price cut from 16 to 14 akçe per vukiye “out of respect” for the sultan); timber demanded from the villagers of Mihmadselam for the shipyards of Sinop and Samsun; and oarsmen supplied for the navy (one man from every 12-20 households) (Çorum Tarihi, p. 111-114).

Sources

• Çorum Tarihi (History of Çorum), 5th Hittite Festival Committee; ed. Çorum Municipality City Archive, 3rd ed., Çorum Municipality Cultural Publications, Çorum 2020, ISBN 978-605-84272-4-2 (Part 2: “Çorum from the Reign of Mehmed the Conqueror to Evliya Çelebi’s Travels,” by Suraiya Faroqhi), p. 93-114. https://www.corum.bel.tr/public/uploads/2026/01/corumtarihi.pdf

Frequently asked questions

When did Çorum become an Ottoman sanjak centre?

Per Çorum Tarihi, the earliest surviving census register (1455-56, from Mehmed the Conqueror's reign) lists Çorum as the centre of a 'vilayet,' a small administrative unit roughly equivalent to a nahiye at the time. A summary register from the early reign of Süleyman the Magnificent shows it as the centre of a sanjak comprising the kazas of Çorumlu, İskilip, Osmancık, Demirli Karahisar and Katar. No source survives for 1455-1522, so the exact founding date of the sanjak is unknown (Çorum Tarihi, p. 103-104).

How large was Çorum's population in the 16th century?

Per the census-register data reported in Çorum Tarihi, the town of Çorum (not the wider sanjak) had no more than about 2,200 people in 1455-56; by the reign of Murad III (late 16th century) it had grown to roughly 10,000, making it, by the standards of the time, one of the leading mid-sized towns (Çorum Tarihi, p. 96-99).