The Population of the Dubrovnik Republic in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

According to tax evidence in Dubrovacko Primorje and a census performed for the purpose of reducing surplus vineyards in Konavle, the Dubrovnik Republic (Ragusa) had almost 90,000 inhabitants by the end of the fifteenth century and was rather overpopulated. From then on to the end of the seventeenth century the population started to decrease: in the first half of the sixteenth century the Republic had more than 50,000 inhabitants; in the second half of the sixteenth century, between 50 and 60 thousand; in the 1630s, about 40,000; and in 1673/4, only 26,000 inhabitants. In the second half of the fifteenth century, due to Turkish expansion, the Dubrovnik Republic gave shelter to a large number of Christian refugees from Bosnia and Herzegovina, offering them the less fertile land. Numerous epidemics, the Candian War, the 1667 earthquake, and emigration reduced the population immensely. The population of the Republic never again reached its previous levels, since there was in fact no need for it to grow. Nenad Vekaric, head of the Institute for Historical Sciences of the Croatian Academy of Sci­ ences and Arts in Dubrovnik. Address: Zavod za povijesne znanosti HAZU, Lapadska obala 6, 20000 Dubrovnik, Croatia. A longer version of this article has already been published in Croatian under the following title: »Broj stanovnika Dubrovacke Republike u 15, 16 i 17. stoljecu«. Anali Zavoda za povijesne znanosti HAZU u Dubrovniku 29 (1991): pp. 7-22. 8 Dubrovnik Annals 2 (1998) Although the Republic of Dubrovnik had a long tradition of census-tak­ ing for different purposes, these early inventories have not been preserved. From the perspective of contemporary observers from the fifteenth to the midseventeenth century, the population of the city of Dubrovnik was roughly estimated from 15,000 to 40,000, and that of the Republic from 50,000 to 80,000 persons (Table 1). Historiographers tend to discard these values, how­ ever, as being overestimated, although most of their arguments fail to be sciTable 1. Contemporary estimates of the population in the town of Dubrovnik and the Dubrovnik Republic (15th-17th century) Estimate's Author * Philippus de Diversis 2 Giovanni Battista Giustiniani Leonardo Bollani Dubrovnik Senate 5 Frano Gundulic 6 Soranzo's anonymous travel writer 7 Serafino Razzi Anonym * Year 1440. 1553. 1555. 1570. 1573. 1575. end of 16th c. . 1624. Dubrovnik (town) 40,000 30,000 25,000 15,000 30,000 30,000 Dubrovnik Republic