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Based on a variety of mainly Ottoman primary sources - kadı sicills, tapu tahrir defters, single documents, as well as contemporary narratives, the article aims at elucidating the impact of the wars waged by the Ottomans with their neighbours at a time of expansion and retreat in one Ottoman border region and city. More specifically it analyses the influence of the war and the frontier on the defence system and the military institutions, on the establishment and development of the provincial administration and the agrarian regime over a period of nearly four centuries. The focus is on the city of Vidin during the wars at the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th century following which it again came at the frontline of Ottoman defence, and on the influence of the frontier on the relations between the two main religious communities in the region, the Muslims and the Orthodox Christians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]