Its reported area in the 19th century was 20,332 square miles (52,660 km2),[3] slightly larger than the original Abbasid province in Upper Mesopotamia.

[4] The 17th-century traveller Evliya Çelebi reported on the organization of the eyalet: "In this province there are nineteen sanjaks and five hakumets (or hereditary governments) [...] eight [sanjaks] were at the time of the conquest conferred on Kurdish begs with the patent of family inheritance for ever.

[...] The officers of the divan of Diarbeker are the defterdar of the treasury with a ruz-namji (journal writer); a defterdar of the feudal forces an inspector (emin), and a lieutenant kehiya of the defter, and another for the chavushes; a secretary (katib), a colonel, and a lieutenant colonel of the militia".

[5] After Reşid Mehmet Pasha assumed as Wāli in 1834, he led military campaigns against the local Kurdish tribes of the Garzan, Bedir Khan and Milli as well as the Yazidi in Sinjar.

[6] After his death in 1836, his successor was Hafiz Mehmet Pasha who continued to subdue the Kurdish tribes and the Yazidi in Sincar.