Silistra Province, Ottoman Empire

Silistra Province (Turkish: "Silistre Eyaleti"), sometimes called Özi Province was an "eyalet" of the Ottoman Empire along the Black Sea littoral and south bank of the Danube River in southeastern Europe.

Created from territory of the former Principality of Karvuna, later Dobruja, Silistra was originally a sanjak of Rumelia Province in the 16th century. Around 1599, it was expanded and raised to the level of an eyalet (province) likely as a benefit to its first governor-general ("beylerbeyi"), the khan of Crimea. It was centered on the regions of Dobruja, Budjak (Ottoman Bessarabia), and Yedisan and included the towns of Varna, Kustendja (Constanţa), Akkerman (Bilhorod-Dnistrovs'kyi), and Khadjibey (Odessa) with its capital at the fortresses of Silistra (now in Bulgaria) or Özi (now Ochakiv in Ukraine).

In the 17th century, Silistra eyalet was expanded to the south and west to include most of modern Bulgaria and European Turkey including the towns of Adrianople (Edirne), Filibe (Plovdiv), and Vidin. In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, a series of Russo-Turkish Wars truncated the eyalet in the east with Russia eventually annexing all of Yedisan and Budjak to the Danube by 1812.

With Ottoman administrative reforms of 1864 the Silistra eyalet was reconstituted as the Danube "vilayet". Also Edirne province was constituted from south of Silistra eyalet.

The area is currently divided between Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, and Ukraine.

ee also

*Danube Province, Ottoman Empire.