In this proposed paper a sampled selection of demographic and economic data extracted mainly from four sets of sources (mid-nineteenth century Ottoman population and temettuat registers, the first population and agricultural censuses of the Turkish Republic, 1927) will be mapped on geo-referenced administrative borders of 20 kazas (sub-districts) in Ankara and Bursa districts. To the best of our knowledge, the Huber map from 1899 “Empire Ottoman: Division Administrative,” provides the earliest administrative borders for sub-districts. In order to be able to map data for our purposes, first the administrative borders of the all of the sub-districts belonging to Ankara and Bursa districts will be geo-referenced for 1899. Then these borders will be re-drawn according to the administrative borders of 1845 and 1927. We have collected representative data on sub-district level for population, occupational structure, agricultural production and animal husbandry for the districts of Ankara and Bursa for the 1840s. For 1927 we have again on sub-district level detailed information, extracted from the censuses on population, occupations and agricultural production. On the district level, total number of animals are also recorded for 1927. Based upon spatially disaggregated data and geo-spatially mapped administrative borders, we will first compare the population and economic geography of sub-districts with the cities of Ankara and Bursa in two observation years, and then compare the changes in the demographic and occupational structures, and the organization of agricultural production and animal husbandry in time, by taking into consideration of the features of physical geography thanks to the GIS capabilities. In doing so our primary aim is to compare urbanization dynamics between two important regions of Anatolia between the 1840s and at the end of the empire. Three conventional markers for the rural-urban divide (population density, occupational structure, and spatial concentration of agricultural production and animal husbandry) will be tested in our exercise. Secondly, we will assess and geographically differentiate the effects of socio-economic shocks such as the extermination of Armenians and the loss of the Orthodox Christians with the population exchange of 1923 on to the socio-economic fabric of the districts of Ankara and Bursa.