{{more footnotes, date=August 2014 The mukataa (mukata’a) was a tax district in

Ottoman Greece Most of the areas which today are within modern Greece's borders were at some point in the past part of the Ottoman Empire. This period of Ottoman rule in Greece, lasting from the mid-15th century until the successful Greek War of Independence t ...

, according to the systems applied widely during the centuries of decline of the Ottoman's fiscal mechanism. The

Chora Metsovo As of the mid-17th century when the Ottomans applied a special tax-administrative regime in the area, the Metsovo region comprises a federation of five mountainous settlements in northern Greece. In various administrative documents surviving from t ...

was a mukataa, meaning a tax district, the proceeds of which were leased out to malikâne, or lifelong tenants of tax districts. In the Ottoman Empire, the term ''mukataa'' referred to districts or regions, parts of state goods, or other sources of revenue which, in order to facilitate its operation, the state would concede to ''iltizâm'', i.e. to private individuals for a set period of time (tahvi). These districts were granted for tenure through an auction (''müzayede'') to the person who offered to pay the highest bid to the state treasury. Seeing that temporary tenants or the frequent change of tenants created tax collection problems and increased foul play against taxpayers, the Ottoman state established the malikâne system, i.e. the system of lifelong tenants of certain tax districts. This is precisely where the political structure of the Chora Metsovou converges with the tax system of the Ottoman Empire. Its Voivodes, meaning the Ottoman officials who were assigned the supervision of a mukataa, are mentioned in local sources also as "malikiane saibides or zaebides", which attests to the fact that their tenure on Chora Metsovou was lifelong and its purpose was to observe and apply the orders of the Sultan’s firmans regarding

Metsovo Metsovo ( el, Μέτσοβο; rup, Aminciu) is a town in Epirus, in the mountains of Pindus in northern Greece, between Ioannina to the west and Meteora to the east. The largest centre of Aromanian (Vlach) life in Greece, Metsovo is a large r ...

Sources

*Η. Gerbe, MUKĀTA‘A, The Encyclopaedia of Islam, (VII: 508a). *Β. Cvetkova, "I ekseliksi tou tourkikou feoudalikou kathestotos apo ta teli tou IST’ os ta mesa tou IH’ aiona" he evolution of the Turkish feudal regime from the late 16th to the mid-18th c. in I oikonomiki domi ton Valkanikon choron sta chronia tis othomanikis kyriarchias ie’-ih’ c. he economic structure of the Balkan countries in the years of the Ottoman rule, 15th-19th c. publ. Melissa, Athens 1979, pp. 93 –95, 103 *H.Inalcik, The Emergence of big farms, çiftliks: state, landlords and tenants, Collection Turcica III, éd. Peeters, Leuvain 1983, pp. 111–112 *G. Plataris, Kodikas Choras Metsovou ton eton 1708-1907 hora Metsovou Log of the years 1708-1907 Athens 1982,, pp. 19–20 *L. Darling, Revenue-raising and legitimacy. Tax collection and finance administration in the Ottoman Empire 1560-1660, Lainten-N.York-Cologne 1996, pp. 119–16 Taxation in the Ottoman Empire Metsovo