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Aleksej Kalc
Figure 7.1 Population in the Tomaj Curacy from 1790 to 1910
Notes 1790 – estimation based on birth rate; 1803 – diocesan visitation; 1821, 1831, 1838
and 1857 – Status Animarum; 1869−1910 – population censuses. Based on data from šak,
žat, mkk; adts v; šak, žat, sa; Orts-Repertorium von Triest und Gebiet, Görz, Gradisca
und Istrien 1873; Spezialortsrepertorium der österreichischen Länder 1885; 1894; 1906; 1918.
In 1821, based on the census data,¹ the parish population totalled 4,484
inhabitants, marking a 28 percent increase compared to forty years earlier.
This corresponds to an annual growth rate of 6.1 per thousand. However,
the developmental dynamics during these forty years were far from lin-
ear. The population experienced rapid growth until the early nineteenth
century, followed by stagnation and even a slight population decline.
This becomes readily apparent when the focus is directed on the nar-
rower area of Tomaj’s curacy, for which more detailed and reliable vital
statistics from the 1790s onwards, alongside population data from 1803,
are available (adts, v, Situazione della Diocesi 1803−1821). In addition
to Tomaj, which serves as the ecclesiastical seat with the parish church,
this administrative unit comprises the villages of Križ, Šepulje, Utovlje,
Dobravlje, Grahovo brdo, and Filipčje brdo.² During the second half of the
nineteenth century and up until the First World War, this territory over-
lapped with the administrative municipality of Tomaj.
Estimating the population at 1,121 in 1790 based on the birth ratio
method, we observe an annual growth rate of 9.5 per thousand until 1803,
followed by a decline averaging 2.1 per thousand until 1821. This decline
¹ Reported in the Status Animarum (šak, žat)
² The villages of the Tomaj curacy are of medieval origin and are first documented in the
following years: Utovlje (Vtendorf) and Šepulje (Sepulsach) in 1147, Križ (Crux) and Do-
bravlje (Dobrilach) in 1180, Tomaj (Tomay) in 1272, Grahovo brdo (Bredis) and Filipčje brdo
(Bredis) in 1316 (https://topografija.zrc-sazu.si/).
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