MONASTIR, Bitolia, or Toli Monastir, a city of Macedonia, now the chief town of the Turkish vilayet of Roumelia, is situated at a height of 1880 feet above the sea, in a western inlet of the beautiful, fertile, and many-villaged plain which, with a breadth of about 10 miles, stretches for 40 miles eastward from Mount Peristeri (7714 feet high) to the Babuna chain. It is embosomed in rich masses of foliage, and crossed by a rough-channeled mountain stream, the Drahor, which joins the Czerna or Karasu, a tributary of the Vardar. The military advantages of its position at the meeting-place of roads from Salonica, Durazzo, Uskiub, and Adrianople led the Turks about 1820 to make Monastir the headquarters of the Roumelian corps d , arrnee. Since then its general and commercial importance has greatly increased. A considerable amount of gold and silver work (especially clasps and filigree) is made by· the local craftsmen. The population is about 40,000.

Monastir—so called from the monastery of Bukova (The Beeches), some hundred feet up the slope of Peristeri—is identified with the ancient Heraclea Lyncestis on the Egnatian Way; and its bishopric is still called the bishopric of Pelagonia from the ancient name of the plain. In 1833 the town was the scene of the massacre of the Albanian beys.