Population of Greek Macedonia

Census of 2001 : Population of greek Macedonia 2.800.000I have no idea of the population of greek Macedonia of 1901, (does anyone has any ottoman statistics?) but enen if the average population growth was only 0,5% (which is a very small number, concidering the birth rate at the european societies during the previous century), but it seems it could not be more than 2.000.000 At least 100.000 of them were Jewish, since there were more than 70.000 Jews in Thesaloniki when it was occupied (or liberated) from the greek army.During previous century, massive population movements happened in the region that is today the Greek MacedoniaAfter 1912-13, there is a great possibility that people who had declared themselves bulgarians and had actively participated in the greek-bulgarian partisan struggle at the territories of today's greek Macedonia during 1904-1909In 1919 (end of WW1), there was agreement between Greece and Bulgaria after the settlement of their borders to leave them open for 6 months for populations that wanted to migrate betwen the 2 countries . (this is personal knowlwdge - I am greek today because my anchestors had choosen to migrate to Greece because of this agreement.In 1923, after the defeat of Grece in Minor Asia, there was an agreement of population exchange between Greee and Turkey (maybe the greatest national cleancing operation in european/world history). Almost 1.500.000 (some say 1.800.000) christians of Minor Asia and Eastern Thrace were exchanged with more than 1.000.000 muslims from Epirus, greek Macedonia and Crete.More than 90% of these christians were also greek speaking people (The rest were Armenians and some turkish speaking christians), and most of the muslims were turkish speaking (except some Albanians- not the chams, they were excluded from the exchange- and the muslims of Crete that were mainly greek speaking). From these 1,5-1,8 million people, around 1.000.000 were settled in villages and cities of Macedonia that were abandoned by the muslim refugiees, and the rest at the south of Greece, mainly around the capital Athens, which at that time grew from a town of 50.000 to a city of 500.000.These dry figures show that in the area that is today greek Macedonia, around 1900 there were maximium 2.000.000 people, from which 100.000 Jews and 900.000 muslims (self identifying as Turks). The rest 1.000.000 is the population that greeks claim as mainly greek and slav-macedonias as mainly macedonians.I don't know who is right. I accept that the years between 1923-1940 were tough, especially after 1936 when in Greece a nationalist almost fachist dictatorship was established. But already because of the greek-turkish ageement, during this time there were installed 1.000.000 greeks (on muslim properties and territories) in greek Macedonia. No matter how many the local greeks were, they were already a majority in the area.During the german occupation 1941-1944, a percentage of the slav-macedonian population that had a bulgarian national feeling cooperated with the germans (Bulgaria was an ally of the Germans and occupied Eastern Macedonia and Greek Thrace), and during the greek civil war that followed liberation 1945-1949, also some part of the slav-macedonian population cooperated with the communist side that lost the civil war (Yougoslavia and Bulgaria, the motherlands of slav-macedonians were already communist), so after 1949 around 50.000-100.000 slav-macedonians fled Greece to these countries.The fact that after 17 years of "fachist greek aupression", and 10 years of german occupation and civil war (a period during which everybody could be concidered an enemy and risk his and his family's life), no more than 100.000 peple maximum decided to fleed the area of today's greek Macedonia, makes me believe that before 1923, the majority of these 1.000.000 christian people there, were either greek or self-idendifying-as-greek but slavophone people.So the pure facts are that in the greek Macedonia of today, there are 2.800.000 people living, from which maybe 1.500.000 have origins in Minor Asia or Thrace. Their grandparents were installed there according to an official state agreement between Greece and Turkey, replacing turkish population which moved to Minor Asia and Eastern Thrace. From the rest 1.300.000, historical facts show that more than 1.150.000 are locals with greek mother language, conciousness and national feeling. Since the total population of Western Macedonia is 300.000 people, and almost all dopika (slav-macedonian) speaking people are found there, we can assume from the electoral results of "Rainbow" party that received 2.000 votes (fighting for the recognition of the macedonians as minority), that 146.000 of this population are people that have dopika as mother-language but greek national feeling and self-identification, and there is a self-defining-as-macedonian minority in Greece around 4.000 people.