Erzurum vilayet
The Vilayet of Erzurum (Armenian: Էրզրումի նահանգ, Ottoman Turkish: ولايت ارضروم, Vilâyet-i Erzurum) was a first-level administrative division (vilayet) of the Ottoman Empire.
| ولايت ارضروم Vilâyet-i Erzurum | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire | |||||||||||
| 1867–1923 | |||||||||||
The Erzurum Vilayet in 1890 | |||||||||||
| Capital | Erzurum | ||||||||||
| History | |||||||||||
• Vilayet Law | 1867 | ||||||||||
• Declaration of the Republic of Turkey | 1923 | ||||||||||
| |||||||||||
| Today part of | Ağrı, Ardahan, Erzurum, Iğdır, Kars, Van | ||||||||||
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 29,614 square miles (76,700 km2), while the preliminary results of the first Ottoman census of 1885 (published in 1908) 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 Armenian vilayets in the eastern part of Anatolia, 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 [mainly Armenian Apostolic].