Erzurum vilayet
The Vilayet of Erzurum was a first-level administrative division of the Ottoman Empire.
The vilayet of Erzurum shared borders with the Persian and Russian empires in the east and north-east, in the north with the Trebizond Vilayet, in the west with the vilayet of Sivas, and in the south with the vilayets of Bitlis, Mamuret-ül Aziz and Van.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Erzurum Vilayet reportedly had an area of, while the preliminary results of the first Ottoman census of 1885 gave the population as 645,702. The accuracy of the population figures ranges from "approximate" to "merely conjectural" depending on the region from which they were gathered. It was one of the Six Vilayets in the eastern part of the Ottoman Empire, and, prior to World War I, many Armenians lived there. Also there lived small communities of Georgians, Pontic Greeks and Caucasus Greeks, and other ethnic groups, both Muslim and Christian.
History
The Erzurum Eyalet was one of the first Ottoman provinces to become a vilayet after an administrative reform in 1865, and by 1867 it had been reformed into the Erzurum Vilayet.In 1875 it was divided in six vilayets: Erzurum, Van, Hakkari, Bitlis, Hozat and Kars-Çildir. In 1888 by an imperial order Hakkari was joined to the vilayet of Van, and Hozat to Mamuret ul-Aziz.
The Kars and Çildir regions were lost in the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) and ceded to the Russian Empire, which administered it as the Kars Oblast until 1917.
Administrative divisions
[file:Erzurum Vilayet — Memalik-i Mahruse-i Shahane-ye Mahsus Mukemmel ve Mufassal Atlas (1907).jpg|thumb|right|250px|Map of subdivisions of Erzurum Vilayet in 1907]Sanjaks of the vilayet:
- Sanjak of Erzurum
- Sanjak of Erzincan
- Sanjak of Bayazid