Salonika Province, Ottoman Empire

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The vilayet of Salonika was an Ottoman province from 1864 to 1912. Its capital was the city of Salonica, and it included the sanjaks of Selânik (Thessaloniki), Drama, and Serres (Siroz or Serez), and had an area of over 50,000 km².

Previously, the area was part of the Rumeli eyalet.

The vilayet was bounded on the south by the Aegean Sea, and by the vilayet of Edirne (Adrianople) on the east, the vilayet of Eastern Roumelia on the northeast (after the Treaty of Berlin), the Principality, then Kingdom, of Bulgaria on the north, the vilayet of Kosovo on the northwest, and the vilayet of Monastir and the independent sanjak of Serfije on the west (after 1881).

[edit] Demography

At the end of the 19th century, it had a population of about 1,200,000, including 565,000 Slavs, 330,000 Turks, 180,000 Greeks, 60,000 Jews, 25,000 Vlachs, 20,000 Romani, and 20,000 "others" (notably Albanians). About 450,000 were Muslim, the rest Christian Orthodox or Jewish.