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{{short description|Second-level province of the Ottoman Empire}}
[[File:Ottoman_Empire_Administrative_Divisions.png|thumb|The Vilayets and Sanjaks of the Ottoman Empire around 1317 Hijri, 1899 Gregorian]]
{{about|the administrative territorial entity|the region in Serbia and Montenegro|Sandžak|the village in Iran|Sanjaq, Iran|various other places with a similar pronunciation in French|Saint-Jacques (disambiguation)}} {{State organisation of Ottoman Empire}} A '''sanjak''' or '''sancak''' ({{langx|ota|{{linktext|سنجاق}}}}, {{translit|ota|sancak}}, "flag, banner") was an [[Administrative divisions of the Ottoman Empire|administrative division]] of the [[Ottoman Empire]]. The Ottomans also sometimes called the sanjak a [[Liwa (Arabic)|'''liva''']] ({{lang|ota|{{linktext|لوا}}}}, {{translit|ota|livâ}}) from the name's [[calque]] in [[Arabic language|Arabic]] and [[Persian language|Persian]].

[[Banner (administrative division)|Banners]] were a common organization of nomadic groups on the [[Eurasian Steppe]] including the early [[Turkish people|Turks]], [[Mongols]], and [[Manchus]] and were used as the name for the initial first-level territorial divisions at the formation of the Ottoman Empire. Upon the empire's expansion and the establishment of [[Eyalet|eyalets]] as larger provinces, sanjaks were used as the [[second-level administrative divisions]]. They continued in this purpose after the eyalets were replaced by [[Vilayet|vilayets]] during the [[Tanzimat]] reforms of the 19th century.

Sanjaks were typically headed by a [[bey]] or [[sanjakbey]]. The Tanzimat reforms initially placed some sanjaks under [[Kaymakam|kaymakams]] and others under [[Mutasarrif|mutasarrifs]]; a sanjak under a mutasarrif was known as a '''[[mutasarriflik]]'''. The districts of each sanjak were known as [[Kaza|kazas]]. These were initially overseen by [[Islamic law|Islamic]] [[Qadi|judges]] (''[[Kadi (Ottoman)|kadi]]'') and thus identical to their [[Kadiluk|kadiluks]].<ref name="bosnia">{{cite book|last=Malcolm|first=Noel|title=Bosnia: A Short History|year=1994|publisher=Macmillan|isbn=0-330-41244-2|pages=50}}</ref> During the 1864 round of reforms, their administrative duties were given to [[Kaymakam|kaymakams]] instead. Under the ''[[timar]]'' system of the early empire, fiefs held by [[Timariots|timariot]] [[sipahis]] were also an important feature of each sanjak.

Sanjaks were initially carried over into the [[Republic of Turkey]] before being reorganized as [[Provinces of Turkey|provinces]] ({{langx|tr|il}}) in the 1920s.{{when?|date=March 2024}}

{{anchor|Name|Etymology}}

== Names ==
''Sanjak'' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|s|æ|n|dʒ|æ|k}})<ref>[https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/sanjak "Sanjak"]. ''[[Webster's New World College Dictionary]]''.</ref> is one [[English language|English]] transcription of the [[Ottoman Turkish language|Ottoman Turkish]] name {{translit|ota|sancak}} ({{lang|ota|{{linktext|سنجاق}}}}). The modern transcription varies as [[Turkish language|modern Turkish]] uses the letter {{angle bracket|c}} for the sound {{IPA|tr|dʒ|}}. The name originally meant "flag" or "banner", derived from [[Proto-Turkic language|Proto-Turkic]] reconstructed as *''sančgak'' ("lance", "spear") from the streamers attached by Turkish riders. Shared banners were a common organization for Eurasian nomads, were used similarly by the [[Byzantine Empire]]'s ''[[Bandon (Byzantine Empire)|banda]]'', and continue [[Banner (administrative division)|to be used as the name for administrative divisions]] in [[Banners of Inner Mongolia|Inner Mongolia]] and [[Kozhuun|Tuva]]. Alternative English spellings include ''sanjac'', ''sanjack'', ''sandjak'', ''sanjaq'', ''sinjaq'', ''sangiaq'', and ''zanzack'', although these are now all obsolete or archaic.{{fact|date=March 2024}} Sanjaks have also been known as ''sanjakships'' and ''sanjakates'', although these more appropriately refer to the office of a [[sanjakbey]].

Sanjaks were also known as {{translit|ota|[[liwa (Arabic)|livâ]]}} ({{lang|ota|{{linktext|لوا}}}}) from their name's [[calque]] in [[Arabic language|Arabic]] ({{lang|ar|{{linktext|لواء}}}}, {{translit|ar|liwāʾ}}) and [[Persian language|Persian]]. In the [[Languages of the Ottoman Empire|other languages of the Ottoman Empire]], they were known as {{translit|hy|nahang}} ({{lang|hy|նահանգ}}, "province") in [[Armenian language|Armenian]]; as {{translit|bg|[[okrǔg]]}} ({{lang|bg|окръг}}, "province") in [[Bulgarian language|Bulgarian]]; as {{translit|el|santzáki}} ({{lang|el|σαντζάκι}}), {{translit|el|libás}} ({{lang|el|λιβάς}}), {{lang|el|dioikēsis}} ({{lang|el|Διοίκησις}}, "diocese"), {{lang|el|[[eparchy|eparchia]]}} ({{lang|el|επαρχία}}, "eparchy") in [[Greek language|Greek]]; and as {{lang|lad|sancak}} in [[Ladino language|Ladino]].<ref name="Straussp4143">{{cite book|last=Strauss|first=Johann|url=https://menadoc.bibliothek.uni-halle.de/menalib/download/pdf/2734659?originalFilename=true|year=2010|chapter=A Constitution for a Multilingual Empire: Translations of the ''Kanun-ı Esasi'' and Other Official Texts into Minority Languages|editor=Herzog, Christoph|editor2=Malek Sharif|title=The First Ottoman Experiment in Democracy|publisher=[[Orient-Institut Istanbul]]|publication-place=[[Würzburg]]|pages=21–51}} ([http://menadoc.bibliothek.uni-halle.de/urn/urn:nbn:de:gbv:3:5-91645 info page on book] at [[Martin Luther University]]) // CITED: p. 41-43 (PDF p. 43-45/338).</ref>

== Ottoman Empire ==
{{further|Administrative divisions of the Ottoman Empire}}

=== History ===
The first sanjaks appear to have been created by [[Orhan]] {{Circa|1340}} or earlier. These were Sultan-öyügü (later Sultan-önü), Hudavendigar-eli, Koca-eli and Karasi-eli.<ref name="Pitcher1972p125">{{cite book|author=D. E. Pitcher|title=An Historical Geography of the Ottoman Empire: From Earliest Times to the End of the Sixteenth Century|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8gs4AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA125|access-date=2013-06-02|year=1972|publisher=Brill Archive|page=125}}</ref>

The districts which made up an eyalet were known as sanjaks, each under the command of a [[sanjak-bey]]. The number of sanjaks in each eyalet varied considerably. In 1609, [[Ayn Ali]] noted that [[Rumelia Eyalet]] had 24 sanjaks, but that six of these in the [[Peloponnesos]] had been detached to form the separate [[Morea Eyalet]]. Anatolia had 14 sanjaks and the [[Damascus Eyalet]] had 11. There were, in addition, several eyalets where there was no formal division into sanjaks. These, in Ayn Ali's list were [[Basra Eyalet|Basra]] and part of the [[Baghdad Eyalet|Baghdad]], [[Al-Hasa Eyalet|Al-Hasa]], [[Egypt Eyalet|Egypt]], [[Tripoli Eyalet|Tripoli]], [[Tunis Eyalet|Tunis]] and [[Algiers Eyalet|Algiers]]. He adds to the list [[Yemen Eyalet|Yemen]], with the note that ‘at the moment the Imams have usurped control’. These eyalets were, however, exceptional: the typical pattern was the eyalet subdivided into sanjaks. By the 16th century, these presented a rational administrative pattern of territories, based usually around the town or settlement from which the sanjak took its name, and with a population of perhaps 100,000.<ref name="Imber">{{cite web|last=Imber|first=Colin|title=The Ottoman Empire, 1300-1650: The Structure of Power|url=http://www.fatih.edu.tr/~ayasar/HIST236/Colin%20_Imber.pdf|year=2002|pages=177–200|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140726115700/http://www.fatih.edu.tr/~ayasar/HIST236/Colin%20_Imber.pdf|archive-date=2014-07-26}}</ref>

However, this had not always been the case. It seems more likely that before the mid-15th century, the most important factor in determining the pattern of sanjaks was the existence of former lordships and principalities, and of areas where marcher lords had acquired territories for themselves and their followers. Some sanjaks in fact preserved the names of the dynasties that had ruled there before the Ottoman conquest.<ref name="Imber" />

In 1609, Ayn Ali made a note on their formal status. In listing the sanjaks in the [[Diyarbekir Eyalet]], he notes that it had ten ‘Ottoman districts’ and, in addition, eight ‘districts of the Kurdish lords’. In these cases, when a lord died, the governorship did not go to an outsider, but to his son. In other respects, however, they resembled normal Ottoman sanjaks, in that the revenues were registered and allocated to fief holders who went to war under their lord. In addition, however, Ayn Ali noted that there were five ‘sovereign sanjaks’, which their lords disposed of ‘as private property’, and which were outside the system of provincial government. Ayn Ali records similar independent or semi-independent districts in the [[Çıldır Eyalet]] in north-eastern Turkey and, most famously, in the [[Van Eyalet]] where the Khans of [[Bitlis]] ruled independently until the 19th century. There were other areas, too, which enjoyed autonomy or semi-autonomy. In the second half of the 16th century, [[Kilis]] came under the hereditary governorship of the [[Ali Janbulad#Family background|Janbulad]] family, while Adana remained under the rule of the pre-Ottoman dynasty of [[Ramazanoghlu]]. In Lebanon, Ayn Ali refers to the [[Druze]] chieftains with the note: ‘there are non-Muslim lords in the mountains.’ There were other autonomous enclaves in the Empire, whether or not they received formal recognition as sanjaks but, by the 16th century, these were exceptional.<ref name="Imber" />

In the 1840s, the boundaries of sanjaks were redrawn to establish equal units of comparable population and wealth. Each of these sanjaks was headed by a [[muhassil]].<ref name="ShawShaw1977">{{cite book|author1=Stanford Jay Shaw|author2=Ezel Kural Shaw|title=History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AIET_7ji7YAC&pg=PA84|access-date=2013-06-04|year=1977|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-29166-8|page=84}}</ref>

=== Government ===
The sanjak was governed as a vilayet, just on a smaller scale.<ref name="rm39">{{citation|last=|first=|page=[https://archive.org/stream/handbookofasiami01greauoft#page/204 204]|title=A Handbook of Asia Minor|date=1919|publisher=Intelligence Department|location=London|url=https://archive.org/stream/handbookofasiami01greauoft}}.</ref> The [[mutesarrif]] was appointed by Imperial decree and represented the [[Wāli|vali]], corresponding with the government through him except in some special circumstances where the sanjak was independent. In such cases, the mutesarrif then corresponded directly with the [[Ministry of the Interior]].<ref name="rm39" /> Most of the sanjaks throughout the Empire were under the rule of non-hereditary appointees, who had no permanent family of territorial connections with the area.<ref name="Imber" />

A sanjak was typically divided into [[Kaza|kazas]], each overseeing a major city and its surrounding hinterland. Initially, the civil administration was headed by an [[Islamic law|Islamic]] judge (''[[Kadi (Ottoman)|kadi]]'') and the area equivalent to his jurisdiction (''[[kadiluk]]'').<ref name="bosnia" /> During the [[Tanzimat]] reforms, the kadis were eventually restricted to judicial functions and administration ceded to a [[kaymakam]] and treasurer. The kazas were further divided into subdistricts (''[[Nahiyah|nahiye]]'') and villages, each overseen by an appointed official or local council.

== Legacy ==

=== Occupied Enemy Territory Administration ===
Following [[World War I]], the sanjaks were used as the basis for the [[Occupied Enemy Territory Administration]]. OETA South was formed from the sanjaks of [[Jerusalem Sanjak|Jerusalem]], [[Nablus Sanjak|Nablus]], and [[Acre Sanjak|Acre]]. OETA North{{mdash}}later renamed OETA West{{mdash}}was formed from the sanjaks of [[Beirut Sanjak|Beirut]], [[Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate|Lebanon]], and [[Latakia Sanjak|Latakia]], along with a number of surrounding subdistricts. OETA East was formed from the sanjaks of [[Syria Vilayet]] and [[Hejaz Vilayet]].

=== Mandate of Syria ===
The [[Sanjak of Alexandretta]] was ceded by the [[French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon]] to [[Turkey]] in 1939, becoming its [[Hatay Province]].

=== Liwas ===
After the fall of the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century, the {{lang|ar|[[liwa (Arabic)|liwa]]}} was used by some of its Arab successor states as an administrative divisions until it was gradually replaced by other terms like {{translit|ar|[[mintaqah]]}}. It is still used occasionally in [[Syria]] to refer specifically to the former [[Sanjak of Alexandretta]], known in Arabic as {{translit|ar|Liwāʾ Iskenderun}} and still claimed by the Syrian state.

=== Sandžak ===
The unofficial geocultural region of [[Sandžak]] in [[Serbia]] and [[Montenegro]] derives its name from the former Ottoman [[Sanjak of Novi Pazar]].

== References ==
{{reflist|30em}}

{{Organization of the Ottoman Empire}} {{Turkish terms for country subdivisions}}