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The Eyalet of Silistra[2] (Turkish: Silistre Eyaleti), later known as Özü Eyalet (Turkish: Özi Eyaleti) was an eyalet of the Ottoman Empire along the Black Sea littoral and south bank of the Danube River in southeastern Europe. The fortress of Belgrade was under the eyalet's jurisdiction.[3] Its reported area in the 19th century was 27,469 square miles (71,140 km2).[4]
The Eyalet of Silistra was formed in 1593 as beylerbeylik of Özi[5] from territory of the former Principality of Karvuna, later Dobruja, Silistra was originally the Silistra Sanjak of Rumelia Eyalet.
Around 1599, it was expanded and raised to the level of an eyalet 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 century and early 18th century, 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.
Edirne Eyalet was constituted from south of Silistra Eyalet in 1830. With Ottoman administrative reforms of 1864 the Silistra Eyalet was reconstituted as the Danube Vilayet.
| According to Sancak Tevcih Defteri, eyalet was consisted of eight sanjaks between 1700 and 1730 as follows:[6] | Sanjaks in the early 19th century:[7] |
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