Gaza Sanjak

Gaza Sanjak
سنجق غزة
sanjak of the Ottoman Empire
1516–1916
of Gaza Sanjak
Coat of arms

CapitalGaza
History 
• Ottoman Empire captured Syria
1516
• Sykes–Picot Agreement
16 May

Gaza Sanjak (Arabic: سنجق غزة), known in Arabic as Bilād Ghazza (the Land of Gaza), was a sanjak of the Damascus Eyalet of the Ottoman Empire centered in Gaza, and spread northwards up to the Nahr al-‘Awja/the Yarkon River. In the 16th century it was divided into nawahi (singular: nahiya; third-level subdivisions): Gaza in the south and Ramla in the north along the Nahr Rūbīn/Wādī al-Ṣarār.[1]

Gaza Sanjak "formed a passageway connecting Egypt and the Levant, precipitating bi-directional trade, conquest and population movements". Situated in the southern part of the Levantine coastal plain, Gaza Sanjak received less precipitation and was more prone to drought and nomadic incursion than more northerly regions.[2]

Marom and Taxel have shown that during the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries, nomadic economic and security pressures led to settlement abandonment around Majdal ‘Asqalān, and the southern coastal plain in general. The population of abandoned villages moved to surviving settlements, while the lands of abandoned settlements continued to be cultivated by neighboring villages.[2] Overall, during the 17th century, about half of all inhabited sites in the District of Gaza were abandoned.[3]

By 1800, settlement in the district expanded again. Migrations from Egypt, improved transportation and security conditions, and land reform led to the repopulation of deserted villages with the encouragement of the Ottoman authorities.[3]

  1. ^ Cohen, Amnon; Lewis, Bernard (1978). Population and Revenue in the Towns of Palestine in the Sixteenth Century. Princeton: Princeton University Press. p. 12. ISBN 9781400867790.
  2. ^ a b Marom, Roy; Taxel, Itamar (2023-10-01). "Ḥamāma: The historical geography of settlement continuity and change in Majdal 'Asqalan's hinterland, 1270–1750 CE". Journal of Historical Geography. 82: 49–65. doi:10.1016/j.jhg.2023.08.003. ISSN 0305-7488.
  3. ^ a b Marom, Roy; Taxel, Itamar (2024-10-10). "Hamama: The Palestinian Countryside in Bloom (1750–1948)". Journal of Islamic Archaeology. 11 (1): 83–110. doi:10.1558/jia.26586. ISSN 2051-9729.