This paper addresses shifting trends in the cartography and ethnography of Palestine in Ottoman military manuals. Ottoman cartography of Palestine has a rich history and resonance with both Islamic and European origins. The earliest sources showing detailed mapping of the Syrian coast were based on actual navigational drawings by well- known geographer-travelers. The most important being Piri Reis (1465-1554) whose Mediterranean map in Kitab al Bahriyyah (1528), continues to be regarded as an artistic masterpiece; and Katip Celebi (1609-1657), whose Tuhfat al Kibar fi Asfar al Bihar (1729) constitutes the first detailed mapping of the Anatolian and Syrian provinces. Commercial and military needs brought about new standards in nineteenth-century Ottoman mapping. Although based on European sources, Cedid Atlas contains important Ottoman adaptations of geographic readings in the provinces. With the close of the nineteenth century and the start of the twentieth, Ottoman maps become more functional with the objective of making them useful for troop movements and commercial activities. By 1912 they had issued a series of such maps of the Syrian provinces at a scale of 1:200,000. In all of these maps, the administrative boundaries of the Jerusalem sanjaq, are not the same as the boundaries of the region of Filistin. The former were precisely delineated, the latter were fluid and undefined. The new expanded use of the designation Filistin by the Ottoman military authorities in Risalesi therefore, is novel, but not arbitrary. In order to establish a unified command against the armies of Ibrahim Pasha in 1830 the Ottoman Porte had taken the unprecedented step of unifying the three Sanjaqs of Jeruslaem, Nablus and Akka (i.e. modern Palestine) under the Governor of Akka, Abdallah Pasha (1818- 1832). This pivotal union was the historical basis for the proposal made by the Sultan a decade later, in 1840, with European blessing, of naming Muhammad Ali governor for life of Akka and ruler of the southern Sanjaqs of Syria. This is seen as a preemptive measure most likely taken to ensure his reintegration into the imperial domain. Since the southern Syrian Sanjaqs stretched from Ras al-Naqura in the north to Rafah in the south, this would have effectively made Muhammad Ali khedive of Egypt and Palestine. The Ottomans believed that dividing Palestine into two zones (Vilayat Beirut and the Sanjaq of Jerusalem) would diffuse European influence. Whatever the reasons this division of Palestine remained in place until the beginning of WWI.