Demographic history of Russia

[2] The urban populations were estimated by Tikhomirov based on the data from the chronicles: militia size, fortified area, number of churches, epidemic victims and burned houses.

The North-East was hit by Edigu's invasion and by pestilence in the beginning of 15th century which led the author of the chronicle to remark that few people remained in all the Russian land (и мало людий во всей Русской земле остася).

In the North the territories between Onega and Ladoga lakes and along Svir, Northern Dvina and Vyatka rivers attracted Novgorodian settlers.

The Mongol invasion triggered an internal migration from less secure Southern lands to the forested regions of Moscow, Tver and Upper Volga.

[6] The first reliable data on the number of households dates to the late 15th century, when Ivan III carried out several censuses of the newly incorporated Novgorod land.

[8] The contemporary population of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania numbered 3.6 million, with Ruthenians constituting the majority (see Demographic history of Poland).

[13][14] The relatively calm period of 1584–1600 was followed by the Time of Troubles when a few consecutive crop failures led to a famine and a collapse of the Russian state, foreign interventions and widespread destruction.

The former Wild Fields became safer as the new defence lines and fortresses were founded and its rich soils attracted settlers from the central Russia.

[24] The conquest of the Kazan and Astrakhan Khanate brought a large Muslim Tatar population alongside Chuvash, Mari and Mordvin people into Russia.