Adrianople vilayet

The Vilayet of Adrianople or Vilayet of Edirne (Ottoman Turkish: ولايت ادرنه; Vilâyet-i Edirne) was a first-level administrative division (vilayet) of the Ottoman Empire.

Prior to 1878, the vilayet had an area of 26,160 square miles (67,800 km²) and extended all the way to the Balkan Mountains. However, by virtue of the Treaty of Berlin (1878), the Sanjak of İslimye, most of the Sanjak of Filibe and a small part of the Sanjak of Edirne (the Kızılağaç kaza and Monastır nahiya) 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 (1913) 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 (Bulgarian since 1885) 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 (Edirne in Turkish; pop. in 1905 about 80,000), the principal towns were Rodosto (now Tekirdağ) (35,000), Gelibolu (25,000), Kırklareli (16,000), İskeçe (14,000), Çorlu (11,500), Dimetoka (10,000), Enez (8000), Gümülcine (8000) and Dedeağaç (3000).