Manastir vilayet


The Vilayet of Manastir was a first-level administrative division of the Ottoman Empire, created in 1874, dissolved in 1877 and re-established in 1879. The vilayet was occupied during the First Balkan War in 1912 and divided between the Kingdom of Greece and the Kingdom of Serbia, with some parts later becoming part of the newly established Principality of Albania.

Administrative divisions

Initially the Manastir Vilayet had the following sanjaks:
After some administrative reforms accomplished in 1867 and 1877 parts of the Manastir Vilayet were ceded to newly established Scutari Vilayet and Kosovo Vilayet.
The administrative divisions of the Manastir Vilayet until 1912 were:

1897

According to Russian consul in the Manastir Vilayet, A. Rostkovski, finishing the statistical article in 1897, the total population was 803,340, with Rostkovski grouping the population into the following groups:
  • Turks, Ottomans: 78,867
  • Albanians, Ghegs: 144,918
  • Albanians, Tosks: 81,518
  • Albanians, Christians: 35,525
  • Slavs, Exarchists: 186,656
  • Slavs, Patriarchists: 93,694
  • Slavs, Muslims: 11,542
  • Greeks, Christians: 97,439
  • Greeks, Muslims: 10,584
  • Vlachs : 53,227
  • Jews: 5,270

    1906/07

According to the 1906/07 Ottoman census the vilayet had a total population of 824,828 people, ethnically consisting as:
  • Muslims - 328,551
  • Christian Greeks - 286,001
  • Christian Bulgarians - 197,088
  • Wallachians - 5,556
  • Jews - 5,459
  • Gypsies - 2,104
  • Armenians - 8
  • Protestants - 5
  • Latins - 3
  • Foreign citizens - 53

    1911

According to Ottoman census data, the ethnoreligious composition in 1911 was the following :
  • Muslims - 455,720
  • Greeks - 349.541
  • Bulgarians - 246,344
  • Jews - 10,651
  • Armenians - 9
  • Other - 2,614

    1912

According to an estimation published in a Belgian magazine, the ethnic composition in 1912 when the vilayet was dissolved during the First Balkan War was:
  • Orthodox Bulgarians - 331,000
  • Muslim Albanians - 219,000
  • Orthodox Vlachs - 65,500
  • Orthodox Greeks - 62,000
  • Muslim Bulgarians - 24,000
  • Muslim Turks - 11,500
  • mixed - 35,000