Throughout modern history, the city mainly fostered a mixed Armenian–Azerbaijani population. The first available demographic information about the city in 1823 suggest that the city had an Azerbaijani majority. However, the number of Armenian inhabitants of the city steadily grew over time to constitute a majority of the city's population until the massacre and destruction of the Armenian half of the city in 1920 by Azerbaijani forces, which resulted in the death or expulsion of the Armenian part of the population—up to 20,000 people.