Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman Empire (Ottoman Turkish: دولت عالیه عثمانیه Devlet-i Âliye-yi Osmâniyye, Turkish: Osmanlı İmparatorluğu, also known as the Turkish Empire or Turkey by its contemporaries, (1299 to 1922), was a multi-ethnic and multi-religious Turkish ruled state which, at the height of its power (16th – 17th centuries), spanned three continents, controlling much of Southeastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, stretching from the Strait of Gibraltar (and in 1553 the Atlantic coast of Morocco beyond Gibraltar) in the west to the Caspian Sea and Persian Gulf in the east, from the edge of Austria, Slovakia and parts of Ukraine in the north to Sudan, Eritrea, Somalia and Yemen in the south.

The empire was at the centre of interactions between the Eastern and Western worlds for six centuries. The empire was the only Islamic power to seriously challenge the rising power of Western Europe between the 15th and 19th centuries. It steadily declined during the 19th century and met its demise after its defeat in the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I. In the aftermath of the war, the Ottoman government collapsed and the empire's lands were partitioned.

Following the victory of the Turkish revolutionaries led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk at the Turkish War of Independence, the Ottoman Sultanate was abolished on November 1, 1922. The last Ottoman Sultan, Mehmed VI Vahideddin, left Istanbul on November 17, 1922. Turkey was declared a republic on October 29, 1923.