Eyalet in the context of "Ottoman Syria"

Sanjak-bey, sanjaq-bey or -beg (Ottoman Turkish: سنجاق بك, lit. 'lord of the standard') was the title given in the Ottoman Empire to a bey (a high-ranking officer, but usually not a pasha) appointed to the military and administrative command of a district (sanjak, in Arabic liwa’), hence the equivalent Arabic title of amir liwa (أمير لواء ’amīr liwā’) He was answerable to a superior wāli or another provincial governor. In a few cases the sanjak-bey was himself directly answerable to the sultan in Constantinople.

Like other early Ottoman administrative offices, the sanjak-bey had a military origin: the term sanjak (and liva) means "flag" or "standard" and denoted the insigne around which, in times of war, the cavalrymen holding fiefs (timars or ziamets) in the specific district gathered. The sanjakbey was in turn subordinate to a beylerbey ("bey of beys") who governed an eyalet and commanded his subordinate sanjak-beys in war. In this way, the structure of command on the battlefield resembled the hierarchy of provincial government.

The Eyalet of Rumeli, or Eyalet of Rumelia (Ottoman Turkish: ایالت روم ایلی, romanized: Eyālet-i Rūm-ėli), known as the Beylerbeylik of Rumeli until 1591, was a first-level province (beylerbeylik or eyalet) of the Ottoman Empire encompassing most of the Balkans ("Rumelia"). For most of its history, it was the largest and most important province of the Empire, containing key cities such as Edirne, Yanina (Ioannina), Sofia, Filibe (Plovdiv), Manastır/Monastir (Bitola), Üsküp (Skopje), and the major seaport of Selânik/Salonica (Thessaloniki). It was also among the oldest Ottoman eyalets, lasting more than 500 years with several territorial restructurings over the long course of its existence.

The capital was in Adrianople (Edirne), Sofia, and finally Monastir (Bitola). Its reported area in an 1862 almanac was 48,119 square miles (124,630 km).

Ottoman Iraq or Hıtta-i Irakiyye (Ottoman Turkish: خطهٔ عراقیه, romanized: Hıṭṭa-i ʿIrāqiyye, lit. the Iraq region) was the Ottoman name for the region of Iraq that was under their control. Historians often divide its history into five main periods. The first began with Sultan Süleyman I's conquest in 1534 and ended with the Safavid capture of Baghdad in 1623. The second lasted from the Ottoman reconquest in 1638 to the start of Mamluk self-rule in 1749. The third period, from 1749 to 1831, was marked by the Georgian Mamluk dynasty’s semi-autonomous governance. The fourth stretched from the Ottoman removal of the Mamluks in 1831 to 1869, when reformist governor Midhat Pasha took office. The fifth and final phase ran from 1869 until 1917, when British forces occupied Baghdad during the First World War.

Administratively, during the first period in the 16th century, Baghdad Eyalet encompassed much of the territory of modern Iraq. In the 17th century, the Ottomans had reorganized Iraq into four eyalets (Baghdad, Basra, Mosul, and Shahrizor). However, from the late 17th century, a trend of administrative unification began, with Basra coming under Baghdad's control from around 1705 and Mosul and Shahrizor following after 1780 during the semi-autonomous Mamluk period. Following this unification, Mamluk rulers such as Sulayman the Great were described as governing “all of Iraq”, and the Ottomans themselves began referring to the region unofficially as “the land of Iraq”. By 1830, and possibly earlier, these were being collectively referred to in official Ottoman correspondence as the region of Iraq, as attested in a letter from Sultan Mahmud II. The four eyalets were later consolidated in the 19th century into the vilayets of Mosul, Baghdad, and Basra, collectively referred to in official Ottoman documents as the Iraq Region (Hıtta-i Irakiyye).

The Eyalet of Anatolia (Ottoman Turkish: ایالت آناطولی, romanized: Eyālet-i Anaṭolı) was one of the two core provinces (Rumelia being the other) in the early years of the Ottoman Empire. It was established in 1393. Its capital was first Ankara in central Anatolia, but then moved to Kütahya in western Anatolia. Its reported area in the 19th century was 65,804 square miles (170,430 km).

The establishment of the province of Anatolia is held to have been in 1393, when Sultan Bayezid I (r. 1389–1402) appointed Kara Timurtash as beylerbey and viceroy was in Anatolia, during Bayezid's absence on campaign in Europe against Mircea I of Wallachia. The province of Anatolia—initially termed beylerbeylik or generically vilayet ("province"), only after 1591 was the term eyalet used—was the second to be formed after the Rumelia Eyalet, and ranked accordingly in the hierarchy of the provinces. The first capital of the province was Ankara, but in the late 15th century it was moved to Kütahya.

The Eyalet of Ankara or Angora, also known as the Eyalet of Bosok or Bozok (Ottoman Turkish: ایالت آنقره; Eyālet-i Ānḳara) was an eyalet of the Ottoman Empire.

The Ottoman army was the military structure established by Mehmed II (r. 1451–1481) during his reorganization of the Ottoman state and its military. It resulted from a major reorganization of the standing army dating from the time of Sultan Orhan (r. 1323/4–1362), which had centred on janissaries who were paid by salary rather than rewarded with booty or fiefs. The army built by Orhan had operated during the period of the rise of the Ottoman Empire (1299 to 1453).

The organization introduced by Mehmed II was twofold, central (Ottoman Turkish: Kapıkulu, the household division) and peripheral (Ottoman Turkish: Eyalet, province-level). Sultan Mahmud II forced this army to disband on 15 June 1826 in what is known as Auspicious Incident, which followed a century-long reform effort.

Ottoman Hungary (Hungarian: Török hódoltság, lit. 'Turkish subjugation') encompassed the parts of the Kingdom of Hungary which were under the rule of the Ottoman Empire from the occupation of Buda in 1541 until the liberation of the region under Habsburg leadership during the Great Turkish War (1683–1699), until the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699. The territory was incorporated into the empire, under the name Macaristan. For most of its duration, Ottoman Hungary covered Southern Transdanubia and almost the entire region of the Great Hungarian Plain.

Ottoman Hungary was divided for administrative purposes into Eyalets (provinces), which were further divided into Sanjaks. Ownership of much of the land was distributed to Ottoman soldiers and officials with the remaining territory being retained by the Ottoman state. As a border territory, much of Ottoman Hungary was heavily fortified with troop garrisons. Remaining economically under-developed, it became a drain on Ottoman resources. During the centuries long three-way Hungarian–Habsburg–Ottoman wars the Hungarian population was highly decimated.

The Eyalet of Cyprus (Ottoman Turkish: ایالت قبرص, Eyālet-i Ḳıbrıṣ) was an eyalet/province of the Ottoman Empire made up of the island of Cyprus, which was annexed into the Empire in 1571. The Ottomans changed the way they administered Cyprus multiple times. It was a sanjak/sub-province (سانجاغى قبرص, Sancağı Ḳıbrıṣ) of the Eyalet of the Archipelago from 1670 to 1703, and again from 1784 to 1878; a fief of the Grand Vizier (1703–1745 and 1748–1784); and again an eyalet for the short period from 1745 to 1748.

The island of Crete (Ottoman Turkish: كریت, romanized: Girit) was declared an Ottoman province (eyalet) in 1646, after the Ottomans managed to conquer the western part of the island as part of the Cretan War, but the Venetians maintained their hold on the capital Candia, until 1669, when Francesco Morosini surrendered the keys of the town. The offshore island fortresses of Souda, Grambousa, and Spinalonga would remain under Venetian rule until 1715, when they were also captured by the Ottomans.

Crete took part in the Greek War of Independence, but the local uprising was suppressed with the aid of Muhammad Ali of Egypt. The island remained under Egyptian control until 1840, when it was restored to full Ottoman authority. After the Cretan Revolt (1866–1869) and especially the Pact of Halepa in 1878, the island received significant autonomy, but Ottoman violations of the autonomy statutes and Cretan aspirations for eventual union with the Kingdom of Greece led to the Cretan Revolt (1897–1898) and the Greco-Turkish War (1897). Despite an Ottoman victory in the war, Crete became an autonomous state in 1898 because of intervention in favour of Greece by European powers and was united with Greece after the Balkan Wars.