The Eyalet of Kefe or Caffa (Ottoman Turkish: ایالت كفه; Eyālet-i Kefê) was an eyalet of the Ottoman Empire. The eyalet stretched across the northern coast of the Black Sea with the main sanjak (Pasha sanjak) being located in the southern coast of Crimea. The eyalet was under direct Ottoman rule, completely separate from the Khanate of Crimea. Its capital was at Kefe, the Turkish name for Caffa (modern Feodosiya in Ukraine).
The city of Caffa and its surroundings were first made an Ottoman dominion after the Turks overran the Genoese in 1475, after which a sanjak centred on Caffa was created. The Eyalet of Kefe was formed in 1568 as a beylerbeylik. By the 17th-century accounts of Evliya Çelebi, its sanjaks were "ruled by Voivodas immediately appointed by the Ottoman Sultan and not by the Khans". The eyalet was annexed to a briefly independent Khanate of Crimea as a result of the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca of 1774. The Khanate itself would be annexed by Russia in 1783.
The administrative divisions of the beylerbeylik of Kefe between 1700-1730 were as follows:
- Sanjak of Pasha (Paşa Sancaığı, Feodosiya)
- Sanjak of Akkerman (Akkerman Sancağı, Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi)
- Sanjak of Bender (Bender Sancağı, Bender)
- Sanjak of Atshu Castle (Kal'a-i Açu Sancağı, Temryuk?)
- Sanjak of Zane (Zane Sancağı)
- Sanjak of Kinburn (Kılburun Sancağı, Kinburn)
- ^ "Some Provinces of the Ottoman Empire". Geonames.de. Retrieved 25 February 2013.
- ^ The Crimean Tatars, p. 14, at Google Books By Alan W. Fisher
- ^ The Crimean Tatars, p. 35, at Google Books By Alan W. Fisher
- ^ Nejat Göyünç, Osmanlı Devleti'nde Taşra Teşkilâtı (Tanzimat'a Kadar), Osmanlı, Cilt 6: Teşkilât, Yeni Türkiye Yayınları, Ankara, 1999, ISBN 975-6782-09-9, p. 77. (Turkish)
- ^ Narrative of travels in Europe, Asia, and Africa in the ..., Volume 1, p. 90, at Google Books By Evliya Çelebi, Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall
- ^ Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire, p. 125, at Google Books By Gábor Ágoston, Bruce Alan Masters
- ^ Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire, p. 112, at Google Books By Gábor Ágoston, Bruce Alan Masters
- ^ Orhan Kılıç, XVII. Yüzyılın İlk Yarısında Osmanlı Devleti'nin Eyalet ve Sancak Teşkilatlanması, Osmanlı, Cilt 6: Teşkilât, Yeni Türkiye Yayınları, Ankara, 1999, ISBN 975-6782-09-9, p. 92. (Turkish)