The establishment of the modern population organization in the Ottoman Empire (1830-1914)

One of the fundamental elements of Ottoman modernization is the reestablishment of the Population System in accordance with Western norms. These efforts, which began with the Tanzimat, began to be carried out in a healthy and orderly manner with the establishment of institutions. As it is known, the land, tax, military and population management of the Devlet-i Aliyye-i Osmani were carried out with the registration system known as the Timar System since its establishment. The military, economic and future projections of the state were made with the information obtained from the tahrir books kept as a result of the conquests. The state's land information, population information and tax information were recorded in these records. They were always protected with care due to their sensitivity and importance. Due to the sensitivity of the information contained in these books, they were first kept in the side room of the imperial council and later, due to their increase in number as a result of the conquests, they were moved to a section of the İbrahim Paşa Palace, which is very close to the Topkapı Palace, and preserved until the 19th century and even the end of the 20th century. Over time, different models were tried due to different reasons and disruptions in the system, but they were not successful. As a final solution, the state leaders had to make the regulations we call TANZIMAT to move to a new land and population management system by taking the systems applied in the West as an example. New regulations and organizations were established and the foundations of the institutions that still exist today were laid. One of the most important of these is the Population Organization. Founded as the Ceride Nezareti, this institution, which later served under different names, currently manages and records the human existence in our country under the roof of the General Directorate of Population and Citizenship Affairs. KEYWORDS: Population, Ottoman State, Organization, Ceride Ministry, Defter, Tahrir