Eastern Rumelia
Eastern Rumelia (Bulgarian: Източна Румелия, romanized: Iztochna Rumeliya; Ottoman Turkish: روم الی شرقى, romanized: Rumeli-i Şarkî; Greek: Ανατολική Ρωμυλία, romanized: Anatoliki Romylia) was an autonomous province (oblast in Bulgarian, vilayet in Turkish) of the Ottoman Empire with a total area of 32,978 km2, which was created in 1878 by virtue of the Treaty of Berlin and de facto ceased to exist in 1885, when it was united with the Principality of Bulgaria, also under nominal Ottoman suzerainty.[1] It continued to be an Ottoman province de jure until 1908, when Bulgaria declared independence. Ethnic Bulgarians formed a majority of the population in Eastern Rumelia, but there were significant Turkish and Greek minorities. Its capital was Plovdiv (Ottoman Filibe, Greek Philippoupoli). The official languages of Eastern Rumelia were Bulgarian, Greek and Ottoman Turkish.[2]
Eastern Rumelia
975,030
1878
13 July 1878
6 September 1885
Eastern Rumelia consisted of the departments (called in Bulgarian окръзи okrazi, in Ottoman terminology sanjaks) of Plovdiv (Пловдив, Filibe), Tatarpazardzhik (Татарпазарджик, Tatarpazarcığı), Haskovo (Хасково, Hasköy), Stara Zagora (Стара Загора, Eski Zağra), Sliven (Сливен, İslimye) and Burgas (Бургас, Burgaz), in turn divided into 28 cantons (equivalent to Bulgarian околии okolii, Ottoman kazas).[9]
The cantons were:
Population and ethnic demographics[edit]
Pre 1878[edit]
The following is a district-by-district population extract from the 1876 Ottoman salname for the Vilayet of Adrianople, which is in turn based on the vilayet-wide census of 1875.[10][11] As is common for Ottoman statistics, figures refer to males only (figures at the bottom are male-female aggregated estimates):
Notes and references[edit]
Notes[edit]
^a From 1885 Eastern Rumelia was de facto part of the Principality of Bulgaria
^b The western part of this canton refused to recognize the authority of Eastern Rumelia, formed the so-called Republic of Tamrash and in 1886 was ceded back to the Ottoman Empire by the Tophane Agreement
^c The canton of Kardzhali was ceded back to the Ottoman Empire by the Tophane Agreement
^d Burgas, Haskovo, and Pazardzhik provinces also include territory that was not part of Eastern Rumelia, while other parts of Eastern Rumelia are now in the provinces of Sofia, Smolyan and Kardzhali. The de facto independent Republic of Tamrash, which is now divided between the provinces of Smolyan and Plovdiv, did not participate in the 1884 census.
