Adrianople vilayet
The Vilayet of Adrianople or Vilayet of Edirne was a first-level administrative division of the Ottoman Empire.
Prior to 1878, the vilayet had an area of and extended all the way to the Balkan Mountains. However, by virtue of the Treaty of Berlin, the Sanjak of İslimye, most of the Sanjak of Filibe and a small part of the Sanjak of Edirne 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 following the Balkan Wars. In the late 19th century, it bordered on the Istanbul Vilayet, the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara in the east, on the Salonica Vilayet in the west, on Eastern Rumelia in the north and on the Aegean Sea in the south. Sometimes the area is also described as Southern Thrace, or Adrianopolitan Thrace.
After the city of Adrianople, the principal towns were Rodosto , Gelibolu, Kırklareli, İskeçe, Çorlu, Dimetoka, Enez, Gümülcine and Dedeağaç.
Administrative divisions
Sanjaks of the Vilayet:- Sanjak of Adrianople
- Sanjak of Kirklareli
- Sanjak of Rodosto
- Sanjak of Gelibolu
- Sanjak of Dedeağaç
- Sanjak of Gümülcine . The whole Sanjak was ceded to Bulgaria, with a small part to Greece in 1913.
- Sanjak of Filibe
- Sanjak of Slimia
Demographics
| Population | Number | Percentage |
| Muslims | 603,110 | 37.83% |
| —Muslims | 557,692 | 34.98% |
| —Muslim Romani | 45,418 | 2.84% |
| Christians | 974,644 | 61.14% |
| —Bulgar millet & Rum millet | 937,054 | 58.78% |
| —Ermeni millet | 16,194 | 1.02% |
| —Roman Catholics | 12,144 | 0.76% |
| —Christian Romani | 9,252 | 0.58% |
| Yahudi millet | 16,432 | 1.03% |
Total population of the Adrianople Vilayet in 1878 according to the Turkish author Kemal Karpat:
| Group | POPULATION |
| Bulgarians | |
| Other Christians | |
| Muslims | |
| TOTAL Adrianople Vilayet |
Population of various ethnoconfessonal communities in the Vilayet and its sanjaks according to the 1906/7 Ottoman census, in thousands, adjusted to round numbers.
The communities are counted according to the Millet System of the Ottoman Empire rather than by the mother tongue. Thus, some Bulgarian-speakers were included in the Greek Rum millet and counted as Greeks, while the Muslim millet included Turks and Pomaks.
| Groups | Edirne | Gümülcine | Kırklareli | Dedeağac | Tekirdağ | Gelibolu | Total |
| Muslims | 154 | 240 | 78 | 44 | 77 | 26 | 619 |
| Greeks | 103 | 22 | 71 | 28 | 53 | 65 | 341 |
| Bulgarians | 57 | 29 | 30 | 29 | 6 | 1 | 162 |
| Jews | 16 | 1 | 2 | – | 3 | 2 | 24 |
| Armenians | 5 | – | - | – | 19 | 1 | 26 |
| Others | 2 | - | – | - | 1 | - | 2 |
| Total | 317 | 292 | 181 | 89 | 159 | 96 | 1,176 |
A publication from December 21, 1912, in the Belgian magazine Ons Volk Ontwaakt estimated 1,006,500 inhabitants:
- Muslim Turks – 250,000
- Muslim Bulgarians – 115,000
- Muslim Roma people – 15,000
- Orthodox Armenians – 30,000
- Orthodox Greeks – 220,000
- Orthodox Bulgarians – 370,000
- Orthodox Albanians – 3,500
- Orthodox Turks – 3,000
Sanjak of Filibe
| Turks | Muslim Gypsies | Christian Gypsies | Bulgarians | Greeks | Armenians | Jews | KAZA TOTAL | |
| Filibe kaza | ||||||||
| Tatar Pazardzhik kaza | ||||||||
| Hasköy kaza | ||||||||
| Zagora kaza | ||||||||
| Kazanlak kaza | ||||||||
| Chirpan kaza | ||||||||
| Sultan-Jeri kaza | ||||||||
| Akcselebi kaza | ||||||||
| TOTAL Filibe Sanjak |
Sanjak of İslimiye
Male population of İslimiye sanjak of Adrianople Vilayet in 1873 according to Ottoman almanacs:| Community | Population |
| Muslims | 37,200 |
| Non-Muslims | 46,961 |
| TOTAL Islimiye sanjak |
Male population of İslimiye sanjak of Adrianople Vilayet in 1875 according to British R.J. Moore:
| Community | Population |
| Muslims | |
| Non-Muslims | |
| TOTAL Islimiye sanjak |
Sanjak of Gümülcine
Total population of the Sanjak of Gümülcine of the Adrianople Vilayet In the 19th century:| Sanjak | Muslims | Christian Bulgarians | Christian Greeks |
| Gümülcine | 206.914 | 20.671 | 15.241 |