| Native Name: | Turkish, Ottoman (1500-1928);: Eyalet-i Silistra |
| Common Name: | Silistra Eyalet |
| Subdivision: | Eyalet |
| Nation: | the Ottoman Empire |
| Year Start: | 1593 |
| Year End: | 1864 |
| P1: | Rumelia Eyalet |
| P2: | Kefe Eyalet |
| S1: | Danube Vilayet |
| Flag S1: | Flag of the Ottoman Empire.svg |
| S2: | Edirne Eyalet |
| Image Map Caption: | The Silistra Eyalet in 1609 |
| Capital: | Silistra[1] and Özi |
| Stat Year1: | 1856[2] |
| Stat Area1: | 94858 |
| Conventional Long Name: | Province of Ochakiv |
The Eyalet of Silistra or Silistria[3] (Turkish, Ottoman (1500-1928);: ایالت سیلیستره; Turkish, Ottoman (1500-1928);: Eyālet-i Silistre), later known as Özü Eyalet (Turkish, Ottoman (1500-1928);: ایالت اوزی; Turkish, Ottoman (1500-1928);: Eyālet-i Özi)[4] meaning Province of Ochakiv was an eyalet of the Ottoman Empire along the Black Sea littoral and south bank of the Danube River in southeastern Europe. The fortress of Akkerman was under the eyalet's jurisdiction.[5] Its reported area in the 19th century was 27469sqmi.[6]
The Eyalet of Silistra was formed in 1593 as Turkish, Ottoman (1500-1928);: [[beylerbeylik (Ottoman Empire)|beylerbeylik]] of Özi (Ukrainian: Очаків, Ukrainian: [[Ochakiv|Očakiv]])[7] from territory of the former Principality of Karvuna, later Dobruja, Silistra was originally the Silistra Sanjak of Rumelia Eyalet.
It was named after Silistra, since its governor often resided in this Danubian fortress. Around 1599, it was expanded and raised to the level of an eyalet likely as a benefit to its first governor-general (Turkish, Ottoman (1500-1928);: beylerbeyi), the khan of Crimea. It was centered on the regions of Dobruja, Budjak (Ottoman Bessarabia), and Yedisan and included the towns of Varna, Kustendja (Constanța), Akkerman (Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi), and Khadjibey (Odesa) with its capital at the fortresses of Silistra (now in Bulgaria) or Özi (now Ochakiv in Ukraine).
In the 17th century, Silistra Eyalet was expanded to the south and west to include most of modern Bulgaria and European Turkey including the towns of Adrianople (Edirne), Filibe (Plovdiv), and Vidin. In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, a series of Russo-Turkish Wars truncated the eyalet in the east with Russia eventually annexing all of Yedisan and Budjak to the Danube by 1812.
Edirne Eyalet was constituted from south of Silistra Eyalet in 1830. With Ottoman administrative reforms of 1864 the Silistra Eyalet was reconstituted as the Danube Vilayet.
According to Sancak Tevcih Defteri, eyalet consisted of eight sanjaks between 1700 and 1730 as follows:[8]
Sanjaks in the early 19th century:[9]