Although part of the local population contributed greatly to the Greek War of Independence the region of Epirus did not became part of the Greek state that time. In 1878, a rebellion broke out with the revolutionaries, mostly Epirotes, taking control of Sarandë and Delvinë. However, it was suppressed by the Ottoman troops, who burned 20 villages of the region. In the following year, the Greek population of Ioannina region authorized a committee in order to present to the European governments their wish for union with Greece. In 1906 the organization Epirote Society was founded by members of the Epirote diaspora, Panagiotis Danglis and Spyros Spyromilios, that aimed at the annexation of the region to Greece by supplying local Greeks with firearms.
Janina Vilayet was one of the main centers of the cultural and political life of Albanians who lived in Janina Vilayet and Monastir Vilayet. One of the most important reasons was the influence by Greek education and culture south-Albanian writers received in the famous Greek school of Ioannina, the Zosimaia. Abdyl Frashëri, the first political ideologue of the Albanian National Awakening was one of the six deputies from Janina Vilayet in the first Ottoman Parliament in 1876–1877. Abdyl Frashëri, from Frashër, modern Albania, together with Mehmet Ali Vrioni from Berat, and some members of Ioannina's Albanian community, founded the Albanian Committee of Janina in May 1877. Frashëri fought against decisions of the Treaty of San Stefano. However, the League of Prizren, was primarily Muslim Albanian, while the local Orthodox Christians felt more sympathy to the Greek cause.
There have been a number of estimates about the ethnicity and the religious affiliation of the local population. The Ottoman Empire classified and counted its citizens according to religion and not ethnicity, which led to inefficient censuses and lack of classification of populations according to their ethnic groups. The vilayet was predominantly inhabited by Albanians and Greeks, while the major religions were Islam and Christian Orthodoxy. The vilayet was heavily Greek, especially the part that would be later incorporated to Greece. According to Aram Andonyan and Zavren Biberyan in 1908 of a total population of 648,000, 315,000 inhabitants were Albanians, most of which were Muslims and Orthodox, although some were adherents of Roman Catholicism. Aromanians and Greeks were about 180,000 and 110,000 respectively. Smaller communities included Bulgarians, Turks, Romanis and Jews. According to Michail Sakellariou of a total population of 550,000 the Greeks were the most numerous at 300,000, Albanians second at 210,000, and there were also 25,000 Aromanians and 3,000 Jews. The sanjaks of Janina, Preveza and Gjirokastër were predominantly Greek, the sanjak of Igoumenitsa had a slight majority of Greeks, and that of Berat north was predominantly Albanian. According to Sakellariou, the official Ottoman statistics in the Vilayet of Janina had the tendency to favor the Albanian element at the expense of the Greek one. According to Sir Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen Gibb in 1895 there were c. 224,000 Muslims. The Orthodox population included c. 118,000 Greeks and c. 129,500 Albanians, and the Jewish population amounted to 3,500 people. According to Zafer Golen two-thirds of the population were Albanian Muslims, while according to Dimitrios Chasiotis c. 419,500 of the total population were Greeks.
