Statistical sources on the history of the Balkarians of the last third of the 19th – early 20th centu-ries

A review of the primary statistical sources on the history of the Balkars in the final part of the last third of the 19th and early 20th centuries is conducted. The source base included collections is-sued by the Terek Regional Statistical Committee as well as archival Balkar demographic statis-tics sources. This sort of historical material has a great information potential and may be analyzed quantitatively. The primary materials of the First General Population Census of 1897 were intro-duced into scientific circulation for the first time: lists of settlements related to the Balkarian population of the Nalchik district of the Terek region, extracted from the Russian State Historical Archive’s 1290 fund (Central Statistical Committee). The conclusion is made about the im-portance of this source for modeling the settlement network of Balkaria in the late 19th – early 20th centuries and for studying the history of the formation of various settlements