Syria Vilayet
The Vilayet of Syria (Ottoman Turkish: ولايت سوريه, Vilâyet-i Suriye), also known as Vilayet of Damascus, was a first-level administrative division (vilayet) of the Ottoman Empire.
At the beginning of the 20th century it reportedly had an area of 24,009 square miles (62,180 km2), while the preliminary results of the first Ottoman census of 1885 (published in 1908) gave the population as 1,000,000. The accuracy of the population figures ranges from "approximate" to "merely conjectural" depending on the region from which they were gathered.
History
In 1864, the "Vilayet Law" was promulgated. The new provincial law was implemented in Damascus in 1865, and the reformed province was named Suriyya/Suriye, reflecting a growing historical consciousness among the local intellectuals. Jerusalem was separated from the rest of the province, and made into an independent sanjak of Jerusalem that reported directly to Istanbul, rather than Damascus. Mount Lebanon had been similarly made into a self-governing mutesarrifate in 1864.
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