The Sanjak of Sofia ( tr, Sofia Sancağı, bg, Софийски санджак) was one of the

sanjak Sanjaks (liwāʾ) (plural form: alwiyāʾ) * Armenian language, Armenian: նահանգ (''nahang''; meaning "province") * Bulgarian language, Bulgarian: окръг (''okrǔg''; meaning "county", "province", or "region") * el, Διοίκησι� ...

s of the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...

which

county town In the United Kingdom and Ireland, a county town is the most important town or city in a county. It is usually the location of administrative or judicial functions within a county and the place where the county's members of Parliament are elect ...

was

Sofia Sofia ( ; bg, София, Sofiya, ) is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria. It is situated in the Sofia Valley at the foot of the Vitosha mountain in the western parts of the country. The city is built west of the Iskar river, and ha ...

. It was founded in 1393 and disestablished after the creation of the

Principality of Bulgaria The Principality of Bulgaria ( bg, Княжество България, Knyazhestvo Balgariya) was a vassal state under the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire. It was established by the Treaty of Berlin in 1878. After the Russo-Turkish War ende ...

in 1878.

History and Administration

The Sanjak of Sofia was established around 1393. Initially it had two

nahiyah A nāḥiyah ( ar, , plural ''nawāḥī'' ), also nahiya or nahia, is a regional or local type of administrative division that usually consists of a number of villages or sometimes smaller towns. In Tajikistan, it is a second-level division w ...

s: Znepolje and

Visok Visok (Cyrillic: Висок) is a region in eastern Serbia and westernmost Bulgaria that lies between the main ranges of the Balkan Mountains and Vidlič Mountain. It is located from Pirot, and about from Belgrade. Geography The Visok regi ...

. Its first

sanjakbey ''Sanjak-bey'', ''sanjaq-bey'' or ''-beg'' ( ota, سنجاق بك) () was the title given in the Ottoman Empire to a bey (a high-ranking officer, but usually not a pasha) appointed to the military and administrative command of a district (''sanjak' ...

was Ince Balaban, also referred to as 'the conqueror of Sofia'. One of its sanjakbeys was Malkoçoğlu Ali Bey, a member of the

Malkoçoğlu family The Malkoçoğlu ( tr, Malkoçoğulları, Malkoçoğlu ailesi) or Yahyalı was an Ottoman Serbian noble family whose members led the '' akıncı'' corps of the empire between the 14th–16th centuries. They served mainly in the Balkan conquest of ...

, who died in 1514. Soon after the establishment of the sanjak, Sofia became the seat of the

Rumelia Eyalet The Eyalet of Rumeli, or Eyalet of Rumelia ( ota, ایالت روم ایلی, ), known as the Beylerbeylik of Rumeli until 1591, was a first-level province ('' beylerbeylik'' or ''eyalet'') of the Ottoman Empire encompassing most of the Balkans (" ...

. Although the

beglerbeg ''Beylerbey'' ( ota, بكلربكی, beylerbeyi, lit=bey of beys, meaning the 'commander of commanders' or 'lord of lords') was a high rank in the western Islamic world in the late Middle Ages and early modern period, from the Anatolian Seljuk ...

s of Rumelia in early periods sometimes stayed in Bitola, Sofia remained the seat and center of the Rumelia Eyalet. Since it was a seat of the Rumelian beglerbey, the Sanjak of Sofia had a status of Pasha Sanjak ( tr, Paşa Sancağı), or the main sanjak of the Elayet. The Sanjak of Sofia and its 50

timars A timar was a land grant by the sultans of the Ottoman Empire between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, with an annual tax revenue of less than 20,000 akçes. The revenues produced from the land acted as compensation for military service. A ...

were registered for tax purposes in 1446 and 1455, and also in 1488/1489 and 1491. In the 1520s around 6.1% of the total population (25,910) of the Sanjak of Sofia were

Muslims Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abraha ...

. At the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th century

Niš Niš (; sr-Cyrl, Ниш, ; names in other languages) is the third largest city in Serbia and the administrative center of the Nišava District. It is located in southern part of Serbia. , the city proper has a population of 183,164, while ...

belonged to the Sanjak of Sofia. At the end of the 18th century it was under frequent attacks by

Osman Pazvantoglu Osman is the Persian transliteration and derived from the Arabic masculine given name Uthman ( ar, عُثْمان, , link=no ''‘uthmān'') or an English surname. It may refer to: People * Osman (name), people with the name * Osman I (1258–132 ...

. In the period 1846-1864 the Sanjak of Sofia belonged to the

Niš Eyalet Niš Eyalet ( ota, ایالت نیش; Eyālet-i Nīş) was an administrative territorial entity of the Ottoman Empire located in the territory of present-day southern Serbia and western Bulgaria. It was formed in 1846 and its administrative centr ...

By James Henry Skene while from 1864 to 1878 it belonged to the Danube Vilayet. At that time it had the following kazas: Sofia,

Kyustendil Kyustendil ( bg, Кюстендил ) is a town in the far west of Bulgaria, the capital of the Kyustendil Province, a former bishopric and present Latin Catholic titular see. The town is situated in the southern part of the Kyustendil Valley, ...

Samokov Samokov ( bg, Самоков ) is a town in Sofia Province in the southwest of Bulgaria. It is situated in a basin between the mountains Rila and Vitosha, 55 kilometres from the capital Sofia. Due to the suitable winter sports conditions, Sam ...

Dupnica Dupnitsa, or Dupnica ( bg, Дупница (previously ), ), is a town in Western Bulgaria. It is at the foot of the highest mountains in the Balkan Peninsula – the Rila Mountains, and about south of the capital Sofia. Dupnitsa is the second la ...

, Radomir, Zlatica, Orhanie and Džumaja.

Disestablishment

After the decisions of the

Berlin Congress The Congress of Berlin (13 June – 13 July 1878) was a diplomatic conference to reorganise the states in the Balkan Peninsula after the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78, which had been won by Russia against the Ottoman Empire. Represented at th ...

were signed on 13 July 1878, the Sanjak of Sofia was merged with Northern Bulgaria into the

, a de facto independent vassal of the Ottoman Empire, except for the kaza of Džumaja (also called Cuma-i Bala), which was passed to the newly founded

Sanjak of Gümülcine The Sanjak of Gümülcine ( Ottoman Turkish: ''Sancak-i Gümülcine'', el, Υποδιοίκησις Γκιουμουλτζίνας, bg, Гюмюрджински санджак) was a second-level province (''sanjak'') of the Ottoman Empire in Thr ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sofia, Sanjak of

Sanjak of Sofia The Sanjak of Sofia ( tr, Sofia Sancağı, bg, Софийски санджак) was one of the sanjaks of the Ottoman Empire which county town was Sofia. It was founded in 1393 and disestablished after the creation of the Principality of Bulgaria ...

Ottoman period in the history of Bulgaria Sanjaks of the Ottoman Empire in Europe 1393 establishments in the Ottoman Empire States and territories established in 1393 1878 disestablishments in the Ottoman Empire States and territories disestablished in 1878