The Eyalet (or Beylerbeylik) of Sidon (Ottoman Turkish: ایالت صیدا; Eyālet-i Ṣaydā) was an eyalet of the Ottoman Empire. In the 19th century, the eyalet extended from the border with Egypt to the Bay of Kesrouan, including the Plain of Falastin (the Israeli coastal plain), the Jezreel Valley, and the hilly region of Galilee.
Ottoman rulers considered creating the Province as early as 1585. The districts of Beirut-Sidon and Safed (encompassing much of the Galilee) were united under the rule of Ma'nid Emir Fakhr-al-Din ibn Maan. The Province was briefly created during Fakhr-al-Din's exile in 1614-15, and recreated in 1660. The province continued to be subordinated in some ways, both in fiscal and political matters, to the Damascus province out of which it was created.
Despite conflicts in the 1660s, the Maan family "played the leading role in the management of the internal affairs of this eyalet until the closing years of the 17th century, perhaps because it was not possible to manage the province-certainly not in the sanjak of Sidon-Beirut-without them." The Maans were succeeded by the Shihab family in ruling Sidon-Beirut from the final years of the 17th century through the 19th century. The Maans were first recognized as "emirs" in 1592 when Fakhr al-Din Maan was made (honorary) governor of the sancak of Safad, and both the Maans and the Shihabis were recognized by the Ottomans as incumbents of an only vaguely defined, only implicitly "Druze" emirate. They never actually exercised any administrative function beyond that of multazim (tax farmer) over several mountain districts in the eyalet of Sidon (the Shuf). In 1763 the Shihabis were also invested with tax farms in the eyalet of Tripoli that had formerly been held by the Shiite Hamada family, which marks the beginning of the "emirate"'s sovereignty over the whole of Mt Lebanon.
19th century 
As part of the Egyptian–Ottoman War (1831–1833), Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt took Acre after a severe siege on May 27, 1832. The Egyptian occupation intensified rivalries between Druzes and Maronites, as Ibrahim Pasha openly favoured Christians in his administration and his army. In 1840, the governor of Sidon moved his residence to Beirut, effectively making it the new capital of the eyalet. After the return to Ottoman rule in 1841, the Druzes dislodged Bashir III al-Shihab, to whom the sultan had granted the title of emir.
In 1842 the Ottoman government introduced the Double Qaimaqamate, whereby Mount Lebanon would be governed by a Maronite appointee and the more southerly regions of Kisrawan and Shuf would be governed by a Druze. Both would remain under the indirect rule of the governor of Sidon. This partition of Lebanon proved to be a mistake. Animosities between the religious sects increased, and by 1860 they escalated into a full-blown sectarian violence. In the 1860 Lebanon conflict that followed, thousands of Christians were killed in massacres that culminated with the Damascus Riots of July 1860.
Following the international outcry caused by the massacres, the French landed troops in Beirut, the Ottomans abolished the unworkable system of the Qaimaqamate and instituted in its place the Mutasarrifate, a confessionalist system that is a direct predecessor of the political system that continues to exist in Lebanon to this day. The new arrangement ended the turmoil, and the region prospered in the last decades of the Ottoman Empire.
Governors of the eyalet:
- different Ottoman governors (1660 - 1772) (see Mehmed Sureyya, Sicill-i Osmani)
- `Umar az-Zahir bin `Umar az-Zaydani (1772 - 1775)
- Ahmad Pasha al-Djazzar (1775 - 1804)
- Süleyman Pasha (1804 – 1809)
- Ismail (18.. – 18..)
- Abdullah Pasha (1820 - 1831)
- Egyptian rule (27 May 1832 - 10 October 1840)
- Köse Ahmed Zekeriya Pasha (November 1840 - March 1841)
- Eneste/Haseki Mehmed Selim Pasha (March 1841 - December 1841)
- Mehmed Izzet Pasha (December 1841 - July 1842)
- Mustapha Pasha (1842)
- Selim Pasha (1842)
- Ömer Pasha (Mihaylo Lattas) (1842 - 7 December 1842)
- Ayasli Asad Mehmed Muhlis Pasha (August 1842 - 9 April 1845)
- Yozgatli Mehmed Vecihi Pasha (9 April 1845 – January 1846)
- Mühendis Mehmed Kamil Pasha (January 1846 - September 1847)
- Mustafa Sherifi Pasha (September 1847 - July 1848)
- Serhalifizade Vamik (Femiq) Salih Pasha (August 1848 - September 1851; 1st time)
- Pepe Mehmed Emin Pasha (September 1851 – September 1852)
- Serhalifizade Vamik (Femiq) Salih Pasha (September 1852 - March 1855; 2nd time)
- Mahmud Nedim Pasha (March 1855 - December 1855)
- Serhalifizade Vamik (Femiq) Salih Pasha (December 1855 - July 1857; 3rd time)
- Arnavud Mehmed Kurshid Pasha (June 1857 – 17 July 1860)
- Fuad Pasha (17 July 1860 - 9 June 1861)
- Charles-Marie-Napoléon de Beaufort d'Hautpoul (16 August 1860 - 5 July 1861; de facto as part of the French expedition in Syria)
- Kaysarli Ahmad Pasha (August 1860 – February 1863)
- Mehmed Kabuli Pasha (February 1863 - February 1864)
- Mehmed Kurshid Pasha (February 1864 – April 1865)
Administrative divisions 
Sanjaks in the early 19th century:
- Sanjak of Acre
- Sanjak of Beirut
- Sanjak of Sidon
- Sanjak of Tyre
- Sanjak of Nablus
- Sanjak of Nazareth
- Sanjak of Tabariah
See also 
- Macgregor, John (1850). Commercial statistics: A digest of the productive resources, commercial legislation, customs tariffs, of all nations. Whittaker and co. p. 12. Retrieved 2013-02-25.
- "Some Provinces of the Ottoman Empire". Geonames.de. Retrieved 25 February 2013.
- McLeod, Walter (1858). The geography of Palestine. Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, & Roberts. p. 52. Retrieved 2013-02-25.
- Winter, Stefan (2010-04-30). The Shiites of Lebanon under Ottoman rule, 1516-1788. Cambridge University Press. p. 120. ISBN 978-0-521-76584-8.
- Kais Firro (1992). A History of the Druzes. BRILL. p. 45. ISBN 978-90-04-09437-6. Retrieved 2013-02-25. "the sanjaq of Ṣafad, which was part of this province, remained under the suzerainty of Druze amīrs until 1660, when the Ottomans reorganized the province."
- Abu-Husayn, Abdul-Rahim (1992). "Problems in the Ottoman Administration in Syria During the 16th and 17th Centuries: The Case of the Sanjak of Sidon-Beirut". International Journal of Middle East Studies 24 (04): 665–675 . doi:10.1017/S002074380002239X. Retrieved 2011-04-11.
- Gabor Agoston; Bruce Alan Masters (2009). Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire. Infobase Publishing. p. 9. ISBN 978-1-4381-1025-7. Retrieved 2013-02-25.
- Gabor Agoston; Bruce Alan Masters (2009). Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire. Infobase Publishing. p. 330. ISBN 978-1-4381-1025-7. Retrieved 2013-02-25.
- Gabor Agoston; Bruce Alan Masters (2009). Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire. Infobase Publishing. p. 87. ISBN 978-1-4381-1025-7. Retrieved 2013-02-25.
- World Statesmen — Lebanon
- System of universal geography founded on the works of Malte-Brun and Balbi — Open Library (p. 647)