It was named after Silistra, since its governor often resided in this Danubian fortress. Around 1599, it was expanded and raised to the level of an eyalet likely as a benefit to its first governor-general (beylerbeyi), the khan of Crimea.[citation needed] It was centered on the regions of Dobruja, Budjak (Ottoman Bessarabia), and Yedisan and included the towns of Varna, Kustendja (Constanța), Akkerman (Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi), and Khadjibey (Odesa) with its capital at the fortresses of Silistra (now in Bulgaria) or Özi (now Ochakiv in Ukraine).
In the 17th century, Silistra Eyalet was expanded to the south and west to include most of modern Bulgaria and European Turkey including the towns of Adrianople (Edirne), Filibe (Plovdiv), and Vidin. In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, a series of Russo-Turkish Wars truncated the eyalet in the east with Russia eventually annexing all of Yedisan and Budjak to the Danube by 1812.
Edirne Eyalet was constituted from south of Silistra Eyalet in 1830. With Ottoman administrative reforms of 1864 the Silistra Eyalet was reconstituted as the Danube Vilayet.
^Nejat Göyünç, Osmanlı Devleti'nde Tașra Teșkilâtı (Tanzimat'a Kadar), Osmanlı, Cilt 6: Teșkilât, Yeni Türkiye Yayınları, Ankara, 1999, ISBN975-6782-09-9, p. 78. (in Turkish)
^Orhan Kılıç, XVII. Yüzyılın İlk Yarısında Osmanlı Devleti'nin Eyalet ve Sancak Teșkilatlanması, Osmanlı, Cilt 6: Teșkilât, Yeni Türkiye Yayınları, Ankara, 1999, ISBN975-6782-09-9, pp. 92-93. (in Turkish)