Gaza Sanjak

{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2025}}

{{Infobox former subdivision

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|native_name = سنجق غزة

|conventional_long_name = Gaza Sanjak

|common_name = Gaza Sanjak

|subdivision = sanjak

|nation = the Ottoman Empire

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|capital = Gaza

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|year_start = 1516

|year_end = 1916

|event_start = Ottoman Empire captured Syria

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|event_end = Sykes–Picot Agreement

|date_end = 16 May 1916

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|image_map = Palestine with the Hauran and the adjacent districts, William Hughes 1843.jpg

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Gaza Sanjak ({{langx|ar|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 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.{{cite book |last1=Cohen |first1=Amnon |last2=Lewis |first2=Bernard |title=Population and Revenue in the Towns of Palestine in the Sixteenth Century |date=1978 |publisher=Princeton University Press |location=Princeton |page=12 |isbn=9781400867790 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MVp9BgAAQBAJ&pg=PA12}}

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.{{Cite journal |last1=Marom |first1=Roy |author-link=Roy Marom |last2=Taxel |first2=Itamar |date=1 October 2023 |title=Ḥamāma: The historical geography of settlement continuity and change in Majdal 'Asqalan's hinterland, 1270–1750 CE |journal=Journal of Historical Geography |volume=82 |pages=49–65 |doi=10.1016/j.jhg.2023.08.003 |issn=0305-7488 |doi-access=free}}

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. Overall, during the 17th century, about half of all inhabited sites in the District of Gaza were abandoned.{{Cite journal |last=Marom |first=Roy |author-link=Roy Marom |last2=Taxel |first2=Itamar |date=10 October 2024 |title=Hamama: The Palestinian Countryside in Bloom (1750–1948) |url=https://journal.equinoxpub.com/JIA/article/view/26586 |journal=Journal of Islamic Archaeology |language=en |volume=11 |issue=1 |pages=83–110 |doi=10.1558/jia.26586 |issn=2051-9729|url-access=subscription }}

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.

The Ottoman census of 1871 (1288 AH) documented the Gaza District as consisting of 55 settlements, including villages and towns. These were organized into the sub-districts of al-Majdal, Gaza, and Khan Yunis. The rural population throughout this district was uniformly Sunni Muslim, adhering to the Shafi'i school of Islamic jurisprudence.{{Cite journal |last=Marom |first=Roy |author-link=Roy Marom |date=2025-01-01 |title=Vines Among the dunes: sand/dune agriculture in Rimāl Isdūd/Ashdod-Yam during the Late Ottoman and British Mandate periods |url=https://www.academia.edu/128219356/Vines_Among_the_dunes_sand_dune_agriculture_in_Rim%C4%81l_Isd%C5%ABd_Ashdod_Yam_during_the_Late_Ottoman_and_British_Mandate_periods |journal=Contemporary Levant |pages=6}}