Adrianople vilayet

Common card · No. 492958

The Vilayet of Adrianople or Vilayet of Edirne (Ottoman Turkish: ولايت ادرنه; Vilâyet-i Edirne) was a first-level administrative division (vilayet) of the Ottoman Empire. Prior to 1878, the vilayet had an area of 26,160 square miles (67,800 km2) and extended all the way to the Balkan Mountains. However, by virtue of the Treaty of Berlin (1878), the Sanjak of İslimye, most of the Sanjak of Filibe and a small part of the Sanjak of Edirne (the Kızılağaç kaza and Monastır nahiya) were carved out of it to create the autonomous province of Eastern Rumelia, with a total area of 32,978 km2. The province unified peacefully with the Principality of Bulgaria in 1885. The rest of the vilayet was split between Turkey and Greece in 1923, culminating in the formation of Western and Eastern Thrace after World War I as part of the Treaty of Lausanne. A smaller portion had already gone to Bulgaria by virtue of the Treaty of Bucharest (1913) following the Balkan Wars. In the late 19th century, it bordered...

Read on Wikipedia · Image User:Orwellianist, Public domain