1299-1922
Founded by Turkish tribes under Osman Bey in north-western Anatolia in 1299.

In 1453 Mehmet II conquered Constantinople.

During the 16th and 17th centuries, at the height of its power under the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman Empire was one of the most powerful states in the world – a multinational, multilingual empire. It included most of southeastern Europe (to the gates of Vienna), including Hungary, Serbia, Bosnia, Romania, Greece, Ukraine; North Africa as far west as Algeria; and most of the Arabian Peninsula Iraq, Syria, Palestine (Israel), Egypt.

The term Ottoman is a dynastic appellation derived from Osman (Arabic: ʿUthmān), the nomadic Turkmen chief who founded both the dynasty and the empire.

With Constantinople as its capital and control of vast lands around the Mediterranean basin, the Ottoman Empire was at the centre of interactions between the Eastern and Western worlds for over 600 years.