page_title: Sanjak of Niš
section_title: 19th century
hierarchical_section_title: Sanjak of Niš / History / 19th century
caption_attribution_description: English: Skull Tower Српски / srpski: Ćele kula
context_page_description: The Sanjak of Niš was one of the sanjaks of the Ottoman Empire and its county town was Niš. It was composed of the kazas of Niš, Pirot, Leskovac, Vranje, Kuršumlija, Prokuplje and Tran.
context_section_description: Midhat Pasha was one of the most noteworthy sanjak-beys of Niš (1861–64) whose reforms in the sanjak were so beneficial that the sultan charged him with preparing the scheme for adapting them to the whole empire.  The Sanjak of Niš became part of the Danube Vilayet when the latter was created in 1864. In 1868 the sanjak was joined with the Sanjak of Prizren, Sanjak of Skopje and Sanjak of Dibra into one vilayet, Prizren Vilayet, which existed until 1877. In 1871 the sanjak was joined with the Sanjak of Novi Pazar to establish the new Vilayet of Novi Pazar which existed less than a year, when the previous situation was restored.
  Albanians were a majority population in some areas of the Sanjak of Niš, like the Toplica region and some villages in the district of Vranje, prior to the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878). During and after the Serbian–Ottoman War of 1876–78, between 30,000 and 70,000 Muslims, mostly Albanians, were expelled by the Serb army from the Sanjak of Niș and fled to the Kosovo Vilayet.
  The largest part of Sanjak of Niš was annexed by the Principality of Serbia after Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), while smaller part and the whole Sanjak of Sofia were annexed by the Principality of Bulgaria.
caption: The Skull Tower in 1878. Following the Battle of Čegar (1809), it was built from the heads of slain Serbs.
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "96", "Image YResolution": "96", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "ACD Systems Digital Imaging", "Image DateTime": "2013:03:13 14:51:31", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "174", "EXIF SubSecTime": "687", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "837", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "644"}