Liwa (Arabic) in the context of "Governorates of Jordan"

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.

A sanjak or sancak (Ottoman Turkish: سنجاق, sancak, "flag, banner") was an administrative division of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans also sometimes called the sanjak a liva (لوا, livâ) from the name's calque in Arabic and Persian.

Banners were a common organization of nomadic groups on the Eurasian Steppe including the early Turks, Mongols, and Manchus and were used as the name for the initial first-level territorial divisions at the formation of the Ottoman Empire. Upon the empire's expansion and the establishment of eyalets as larger provinces, sanjaks were used as the second-level administrative divisions. They continued in this purpose after the eyalets were replaced by vilayets during the Tanzimat reforms of the 19th century.

Mutasarrif, mutesarrif, mutasarriff, or mutesarriff (Ottoman Turkish: متصرّف, romanized: mutasarrıf, lit. 'plenipotentiary') was the title used in the Ottoman Empire and places like post-Ottoman Iraq for the governor of an administrative district in place of the usual sanjakbey. The Ottoman rank of mutasarrif was established as part of a 1864 reform, and its holder was appointed directly by the Sultan.

The administrative district under his authority, the mutasarrifate (mutasarriflık), was officially called a sanjak (سنجاق) in Turkish or liwa (لواء) in Arabic and Persian. A mutasarrif was subordinate to a wali or governor-general of a province, while being of superior rank to a kaymakam.

The Sanjak of Kocaeli was a second-level Ottoman province (sanjak or liva) with capital at Iznikmid/Izmid (Byzantine Nicomedia, modern Izmit).

The Sanjak of Drama (Ottoman Turkish: Sancak-i/Liva-i Drama; Greek: λιβάς/σαντζάκι Δράμας) was a second-level Ottoman province (sanjak or liva) encompassing the region around the town of Drama (now in Greece) in eastern Macedonia.

The sanjak was formed as part of the Tanzimat reforms ca. 1846, from territory taken from various provinces; Drama itself belonged to the Sanjak of Siroz. The sanjak belonged to the Salonica Eyalet, after 1867 the Salonica Vilayet. In 1867–69, the Sanjak of Drama was merged back into the Sanjak of Siroz, was re-established and then temporarily abolished in 1872–73. In 1891, its territories east of the Nestos river became part of the Sanjak of Adrianople.

The Sanjak of Serfiğe (Greek: Σαντζάκι/Υποδιοίκησις Σερβίων) was a second-level Ottoman province (sanjak or liva) centred on the town of Serfiğe (Servia) in western Macedonia, now part of Greece.

The sanjak was founded in 1881, after the Greek annexation of Thessaly (the sanjak of Tirhala), initially as an independent province, and after 1889 as part of Manastir Vilayet. In 1912, the province encompassed six kazas (districts): Nasliç (Voio), Serfiğe itself, Kozana (Kozani), Kayalar (Ptolemaida), Nasliğ (Neapoli, Kozani), Grebene (Grevena) and Alasonya (Elassona).