page_title: Pontus (region)
section_title: Ottoman vilayet
hierarchical_section_title: Pontus (region) / History / Ottoman vilayet
caption_attribution_description: English: Christian population in the Black Sea region in 1896. According to the information of this map: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Armenian_population_map_1896.jpg The Christians in the Trabzon Vilayet and the Black sea coast were mostly Greeks. In the areas south of the Trabzon Vilayet and the Black Sea coast the Christians were mostly Armenians. In some areas with less than 25% Christians, the Christians were less than 15% or less than 5%. But that is not shown on the map.
context_page_description: Pontus or Pontos is a region on the southern coast of the Black Sea, located in modern-day eastern Black Sea Region of Turkey. The name was applied to the coastal region and its mountainous hinterland by the Greeks who colonized the area in the Archaic period and derived from the Greek name of the Black Sea: Εύξεινος Πόντος, "Hospitable Sea", or simply Pontos as early as the Aeschylean Persians and Herodotus' Histories.
  Having originally no specific name, the region east of the river Halys was spoken of as the country Ἐν Πόντῳ, lit. "on the [Euxinos] Pontos", and hence it acquired the name of Pontus, which is first found in Xenophon's Anabasis. The extent of the region varied through the ages but generally extended from the borders of Colchis until well into Paphlagonia in the west, with varying amounts of hinterland. Several states and provinces bearing the name of Pontus or variants thereof were established in the region in the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine periods, culminating in the late Byzantine Empire of Trebizond. Pontus is sometimes considered as the original home of the Amazons, in ancient Greek mythology and historiography.
context_section_description: Under the subsequent Ottoman rule which began with the fall of Trebizond, particularly starting from the 17th century, some of the region's Pontic Greeks became Muslim through the Devşirme system. But at the same time some valleys inhabited by Greeks converted voluntarily, most notably those in the Of valley. Large communities (around 25% of the population) of Christian Pontic Greeks remained throughout the area (including Trabezon and Kars in northeastern Turkey/the Russian Caucasus) until the 1920s, and in parts of Georgia and Armenia until the 1990s, preserving their own customs and dialect of Greek. One group of Islamicized Greeks were called the Kromli, but were suspected of secretly having remained Christians. They numbered between 12,000 and 15,000 and lived in villages including Krom, Imera, Livadia, Prdi, Alitinos, Mokhora, and Ligosti. Many of the Islamized Greeks continued speaking their language, known for its unique preservation of characteristics of Ancient Greek and still today there are some in the Of valley that still speak the local Ophitic dialect.
caption: Christian population in 1896
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