Erzurum Vilayet

For other uses, see Province of Erzurum (disambiguation).

ولايت ارضروم Vilâyet-i Erzurum Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire ← 1875–1923 →   →   → Erzurum Vilayet in 1900 Capital Erzurum History  -  Established 1875  -  Declaration of the Republic of Turkey 1923 Population  -  Muslim, 1914 673,297   -  Greek, 1914 4,864   -  Armenian, 1914 134,377

The Vilayet of Erzerum (Ottoman Turkish: ولايت ارضروم, Vilâyet-i Erzurum) was a vilayet (province) of the Ottoman Empire.

The vilayet of Erzurum shared borders with the Persian and Russian empires in the east and north-east, in the north with the Trebizond Vilayet, in the west with the vilayet of Sebastia, and in the south with the vilayets of Bitlis, Mamuret-ül Aziz and Van.

At the beginning of the 20th century it reportedly had an area of 29,614 square miles (76,700 km²), while the preliminary results of the first Ottoman census of 1885 (published in 1908) gave the population as 645,702. The accuracy of the population figures ranges from "approximate" to "merely conjectural" depending on the region from which they were gathered. It was one of the six Armenian vilayets in the eastern part of Anatolia, and, prior to World War I, had a large number of Armenians living there as well as Georgians, Pontic Greeks and Caucasus Greeks, and other ethnic groups, both Muslim and Christian (mainly Greek Orthodox and Armenian churches).

History

In 1875 the eyalet of Erzurum was divided in six vilayets: Erzurum, Van, Hakkari, Bitlis, Hozat (Dersim) and Kars-Çildir. In 1888 by an imperial order Hakkari was joined to the vilayet of Van, and Hozat to Mamuret ul-Aziz.

The Kars and Çildir regions were lost in the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) and ceded to the Russian Empire, which administered it as the Kars Oblast until 1917.

Administrative divisions

Sanjaks and kazas:

Erzurum Erzurum Ovacık Kiğı Tercan Hınıs Tortum Yusufeli (Kiskim) Hasankale (Pasinler)

Erzincan Erzincan Refahiye Kuruçay Kemah Bayburt İspir

Doğubeyazıt (Bayezit) Doğubeyazıt Diyadin Ağrı (Karakilise) Eleşkirt Tutak (Entap)

See also

• Western Armenia

External links

•  Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Erzerum". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 
• Media related to Vilayet of Erzurum at Wikimedia Commons