Sanjak of Siroz
The Sanjak of Siroz or Serres was a second-level Ottoman province encompassing the region around the town of Serres in central Macedonia.
Serres fell to the Ottoman Empire on 19 September 1383, and initially formed a fief of Evrenos Beg, who brought in Yörük settlers from Sarukhan. Although never rising to particular prominence within the Ottoman Empire, Serres became also the site of a mint from 1413/14 on. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, Serres was an autonomous beylik under a succession of derebeys, within the Sanjak of Salonica.
Siroz became a regular province by 1846, during the Tanzimat reforms, as a sanjak of the Salonica Eyalet, encompassing the towns of Drama, Melnik, Timurhisar, Nevrekop and Lissa. Drama was created as a separate sanjak centre shortly after, and by 1912, the last year of its existence, the sanjak of Serres encompassed the kazas of Serres proper, Zihne, Melnik, Razlik, Petrich, Timurhisar, Djuma-i Bala and Nevrekop.
The province was dissolved when occupied by Bulgarian troops in the First Balkan War. In 1913, after the Second Balkan War, the town of Serres and the southern half of the sanjak became part of Greece.
