eyalet

An eyalet was a major administrative division of the Ottoman Empire, used from roughly the 14th through the 19th century. The term, of Persian origin, referred to a province governed by a beylerbey who held both civil and military authority on behalf of the sultan.

A typical eyalet was subdivided into sanjaks, each led by a sanjak-bey. Sanjaks contained districts called kazas, administered by local officials. The system combined central oversight with limited local autonomy, enabling the empire to project military power and collect taxes across diverse regions. Tax registers and fiscal records (defters) supported revenue collection and military provisioning.

Eyalets varied considerably in size and shape as the empire expanded and reorganized. Well-known examples included Rumelia Eyalet in the Balkans, Anatolia Eyalet in Asia Minor, and larger autonomous or strategically important provinces such as the Egypt Eyalet and Damascus Eyalet. The structure was designed to balance imperial authority with provincial administration and to mobilize resources for imperial needs.

In the 19th century, the Ottoman state implemented-wide reforms during the Tanzimat era, culminating in the Vilayet Law of 1864. This reform replaced the eyalet system with the vilayet system, reorganizing provinces into vilayets governed by vali (valis) and subdivided into sanjaks and kazas under standardized rules. The change aimed to strengthen central control, standardize administration, and modernize governance.

Today, the term eyalet is primarily used by historians to describe the Ottoman provincial framework and by those studying the administrative history of the region.