Ottoman Empire

Dictionary Definition and Picture of Ottoman Empire

• A vast Turkish sultanate of southwest Asia, northeast Africa, and southeast Europe. It was founded in the 13th century by Osman I and ruled by his descendants until its dissolution after World War I. Originally a small state controlled by Ottoman or Osmanli Turks, it spread rapidly, superseding the Byzantine Empire in the east. (source: The American Heritage Dictionary)
• An empire developed by Turks between the fourteenth and twentieth centuries. It was succeeded in the 1920s by the present-day republic of Turkey. At its greatest extent, the Ottoman Empire included many parts of southeastern Europe and the Middle East.
• The Ottoman Empire (Ottoman Turkish; literally, "The Sublime Ottoman State"), also sometimes known as the Turkish Empire, existed from 1299 to 1923. At the height of its power in the 16th and 17th centuries, its territory included Anatolia, the Middle East, parts of North Africa, and much of south-eastern Europe to the Caucasus. It comprised an area of about 5.6 million km²[1], though it controlled a much larger area, if adjoining areas dominated mainly by nomadic tribes, where the empire's suzerainty was recognized, are included. The empire interacted with both Eastern and Western cultures throughout its 624-year history. (source: Wikipedia.org)