Eastern Rumelia | |||||||||
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Autonomous Province of Ottoman Empire (in personal union with Bulgaria from 1886) | |||||||||
1878–1885 | |||||||||
Principality of Bulgaria (dark green) and Eastern Rumelia (light green) after the Berlin Congress in 1878, formally in personal union from 1886.
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Capital | Plovdiv | ||||||||
Population | |||||||||
• 1884 | 975,030 | ||||||||
Government | |||||||||
• Type | Autonomous Province | ||||||||
Governor-General | |||||||||
• 1879–1884 | Aleksandar Bogoridi | ||||||||
• 1884–1885 | Gavril Krastevich | ||||||||
• 1886 | Aleksandar I | ||||||||
• 1887–1908 | Ferdinand I | ||||||||
History | |||||||||
• Established | 1878 | ||||||||
13 July 1878 | |||||||||
6 September 1885 | |||||||||
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Today part of | Bulgaria |
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]