Our Series on Empires leads us to focus on the Ottoman Empire, one of the most successful empires of all time, which lasted from the 15th Century until 1923.
What became the Ottoman Empire was at first one of the numerous Turkish statelets that had been established in Anatolia after the retreat of the Byzantine Empire. By capturing Constantinople in 1453, it became the regional superpower and went on to control vast areas across the Mediterranean Basin and beyond.
This map shows the Empire at its greatest extant, in the late 18th Century, where the Ottoman Empire controls Asia Minor, the Levant most of the Arabic Peninsula, North Africa, Crimea, the Western Caucasus, and the entirety of the Balkan Peninsula.
More on the Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire
