Kaymakam, also known by many other romanizations, was a title used by various officials of the Ottoman Empire, including acting grand viziers, governors of provincial sanjaks, and administrators of district kazas.
The title has been retained and is sometimes used without translation for provincial or subdistrict governors in various Ottoman successor states, including the Republic of Turkey, Kuwait, Iraq, and Lebanon.
[2] The term Caimacam has a specific meaning in Moldavian and Wallachian history, where it refers to a temporary replacement for a Domn (Hospodar/"Prince"), in and after Phanariote rule, as well as the delegates of the Oltenia Ban in Craiova after the main office was moved to Bucharest during the same period (1761).
In the Persian Gulf, four hakims (native rulers) of the later emirate of Qatar held the additional Ottoman title of kaymakam in their administrative capacity since 1872 of district administrator since the establishment of Ottoman sovereignty (as kaza [district] of Sandjak al-Hasa, within the vilayet of Baghdad, from 1875 Basra vilayet) till this was exchanged on 3 November 1916 with a British protectorate (as Sheikdom of Qatar, colonially under the chief political resident of the Persian Gulf, at Bahrein).
[2] After Muhammad Ali consolidated his control of the country and his Westernizing reforms, the title, as in the rest of the Ottoman Empire, acquired a new technical meaning: in the army, it became a rank equivalent to lieutenant-colonel, while in the administration it signified the official in charge of a nahiye, with particular responsibility for the maintenance of the irrigation system.