During the 18th century, the Habsburgs carried out an intensive colonisation of the area, which had low population density after the last
Ottoman wars. The new settlers were primarily
Serbs,
Hungarians, and
Germans. Because many of the Germans came from
Swabia, they were known as , or
Danube Swabians. Some Germans also came from Austria, and some from
Bavaria and
Alsace.
Lutheran Slovaks,
Rusyns, and others were also colonized, but to a much smaller extent. According to the Austrian census from 1715,
Serbs,
Bunjevci, and
Šokci comprised 97.6% of the county's population. The 1720 census recorded 104,569 citizens in the county. Of those, there were 98,000 Serbs (divided into 76,000
Orthodox and 22,000 Roman Catholics, or Bunjevci and Šokci), 5,019 Magyars and 750 Germans. The Serbs (73%) and Bunjevci and Šokci (21%) had an overwhelming majority in the county at that time. There was also an emigration of Serbs from the eastern parts of the region, which belonged to Military Frontier until 1751. After the abolishment of the Theiß-Maros section of Military Frontier, many Serbs emigrated from north-eastern parts of Batschka. They moved either to
Russia (notably to
New Serbia and
Slavo-Serbia) or to
Banat, where
the Military Frontier was still in place. By 1820, the county had grown to 387,914 in total population. The Serb (including Croats, Bunjevci and Šokci) share had dropped to 44% or 170,942, with the number of Hungarians rising to 121,688 and Germans to 91,016, or 31% and 23%, respectively. As for the geographical distribution of the four largest ethnic groups in 1910,
Hungarians mainly lived in the northern parts of the county,
Germans in the western parts,
Croats (including
Bunjevci and
Šokci) around
Szabadka and
Serbs in the southern parts. The city of
Újvidék in the southern part of the county was the cultural and political centre of the Serbs in the 18th and 19th centuries. ==Subdivisions==