Kelbajar demographics · Atlas

Density 1.0× span

Demographics over time · Kelbajar · share of population + headcount

Azerbaijani
Kurdish

All observations · 12 rows

Year	Group	Share	Population	Source	Notes
1897	Azerbaijani	80%	—	First General Census of the Russian Empire, 1897	Then Jevanshir uezd, northern part. Highland zone with Sunni Kurdish minority.
1897	Kurdish	18%	—	First General Census of the Russian Empire, 1897
1939	Azerbaijani	75%	—	All-Union Population Census of 1939	Kelbajar district. Substantial Kurdish minority through the 1930s; "Kurdishness" as a distinct census category was actively suppressed under Soviet Azerbaijani policy from the late 1930s.
1939	Kurdish	24%	—	All-Union Population Census of 1939
1959	Azerbaijani	78%	—	All-Union Population Census of 1959
1979	Azerbaijani	75%	41,000	All-Union Soviet Census of 1979	Kelbajar district pre-1993. Mixed Azerbaijani-Kurdish population in the highland zone north-east of NKAO.
1979	Kurdish	22%	—	All-Union Soviet Census of 1979	Sunni Kurds and Yezidi Kurds, the largest non-Azerbaijani Muslim community in Soviet Azerbaijan.
1989	Azerbaijani	80%	45,000	All-Union Soviet Census of 1989
1994	Azerbaijani	—	0	Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War	After the April 1993 Armenian capture of Kelbajar, the Azerbaijani population (~45,000) fled.
1994	Armenian	—	1,000	Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War	Small Armenian re-settlement in the strategically critical highland zone north-east of NKAO.
2009	Armenian	—	1,800	Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War
2024	Azerbaijani	—	1,500	AzStat and government reports on resettlement of Karabakh and surrounding districts, 2021-2024	Azerbaijani re-settlement under the "Great Return" programme since the 2020 handover.