Prosperity
Demographics
Although located in a rather isolated place in the mountains of southern Albania, the city rose to become the most important center of the Aromanians. Moscopole was a small settlement until the end of the 17th century, but afterwards showed a remarkable financial and cultural development. Some writers have claimed that Moscopole in its glory days (1730–1760) had as many as 70,000 inhabitants; other estimates placed its population closer to 35,000; but a more realistic number may be closer to 3500: "...The truth may be closer to this number [sc. 3500] than to 70,000. Moschopolis was certainly not among the largest Balkan cities of the 18th century".
According to the Swedish historian Johann Thunmann who visited Moscopole and wrote a history of the Aromanians in 1774, everyone in the city spoke Aromanian; many also spoke Greek, which was used for writing contracts, in fact the city is said to have been mainly populated by Vlachs/Aromanians. The fact was confirmed by a 1935 analysis of the family names shows that the majority of the population was indeed Vlachs, but there were also Greeks and Albanians present in the city
