Erzurum Vilayet

Erzurum Vilayet

The Vilayet of Erzerum (Ottoman Turkish: ولايت ارضروم, Vilâyet-i Erzurum) was a vilayet (province) of the Ottoman Empire.

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 Sebastia, and in the south with the vilayets of Bitlis, Mamuret-ül Aziz and Van.

At the beginning of the 20th century it 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, had a large number of Armenians living there.