The territorial evolution of the Ottoman Empire spans seven centuries.

The origins of the Ottomans can be traced back to the late 11th century when a few small Muslim emirates of Turkic origins and nomadic nature—called beyliks—started to be found in different parts of Anatolia. Their main role was to defend Seljuk border areas with the Byzantine Empire—a role reinforced by the migration of many Turks to Asia Minor. However, in 1071 and following the victory of the Sultanate of Rum over the Byzantines at the Battle of Manzikert, Beyliks sought an opportunity to override the Seljuk authority and declare their own sovereignty openly.

While the Byzantine Empire was to continue for nearly another four centuries, and the Crusades would contest the issue for some time, the victory at Manzikert signalled the beginning of Turkic ascendancy in Anatolia. The subsequent weakening of the Byzantine Empire and the political rivalry between the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum and the Fatimids in Egypt and southern Syria were the main factors that helped the Beyliks take advantage of the situation and unite their principalities.

Among those principalities was a tribe called Söğüt, founded and led by Ertuğrul, which settled in the river valley of Sakarya. When Ertuğrul died c. 1280 his son Osman succeeded him, establishing the state which would go on to become the Ottoman Empire.

1389

Murad I (nicknamed Hüdavendigâr, from Persian: خداوندگار, Khodāvandgār, "the devotee of God" – but meaning "sovereign" in this context) () (March or June 29, 1326, Sogut or Bursa  – June 28, 1389, Battle of Kosovo) () was the ruler of the Ottoman Empire, Sultan of Rûm, from 1359 to 1389. He was the son of Orhan I and the Valide Sultan Nilüfer Hatun (whose name means Water lily in Turkish), daughter of the Prince of Yarhisar or Byzantine Princess Helen (also named Nilüfer), who was of ethnic Greek descentThe Fall of Constantinople, Steven Runciman, Cambridge University Press, p.36The Nature of the Early Ottoman State, Heath W. Lowry, 2003 SUNY Press, p.153History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, Stanford Jay Shaw, Cambridge University Press, p.24 and became the ruler following his father's death in 1359.

1481

Mehmet II (Ottoman Turkish: محمد الثانى Meḥmed-i sānī, ), (also known as el-Fatih (الفاتح), "the Conqueror", in Ottoman Turkish), or, in modern Turkish, Fatih Sultan Mehmet) (March 30, 1432, Edirne  – May 3, 1481, Hünkârcayırı, near Gebze) was Sultan of the Ottoman Empire (Rûm until the conquest) for a short time from 1444 to September 1446, and later from February 1451 to 1481. At the age of 21, he conquered Constantinople (on Tuesday, 29 May 1453), bringing an end to the Byzantine Empire.

1520

Selim I (Ottoman Turkish: سليم اوّل, Modern Turkish: I. Selim) also known as "the Grim" or "the Brave", or the best translation "the Stern", Yavuz in Turkish, the long name is Yavuz Sultan Selim; (1470/1 – September 22, 1520) was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1512 to 1520.Yavuz Sultan Selim Biography Retrieved 2007-09-16

Selim's father was Bayezid II and his mother was Ayşe Hatun, from Dulkadirids.

Selim carried the empire to the leadership of the Sunni branch of Islam by his conquest of the Middle East. He represents a sudden change in the expansion policy of the empire, which before his reign had mostly worked against the West and the Beyliks.The Rise of the Turks and the Ottoman Empire Retrieved 2007-09-16 On the eve of his death in 1520, the Ottoman Empire spanned almost (trebling during Selim's reign). These included some dependent, vassal states such as like Walachia from 1396, Crimea Khanate from 1475, Moldavia from 1501 and Algeria from 1520.

1566

Suleiman I ( Süleymān, ; almost always Kanuni Sultan Süleyman) (6 November 1494  – 5/6/7 September 1566) was the tenth and longest-reigning Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, from 1520 to his death in 1566. Suleiman became a prominent monarch of 16th century Europe and personally led Ottoman armies to conquer Belgrade and Rhodes, as well as most of Hungary. In 1541 he annexed central Hungary and Transylvania became an Ottoman vassal. However, the rest of the Kingdom of Hungary, including western and northern (Upper) Hungary and Croatia, was still in Habsburg possession. Suleiman also conquered Iraq in his conflict with the Safavid dynasty. Under his rule, the Ottoman fleet dominated the seas from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. Places which make up modern day Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Qatar came under the control of the Ottomans.

1622

The Treaty of Zohab (or the Treaty of Qasr-e-Shirin) was an accord signed between Safavid Persia and the Ottoman Empire on May 17, 1639. This accord ended the war that had begun in 1623 and was the last conflict in almost 150 years of intermittent wars between the two states over territorial disputes. The treaty divided territories in the Middle East by granting Yerevan in the southern Caucasus to Iran and all of Mesopotamia (including Baghdad) to the Ottomans.

1672

In 1672 the Ottomans under Sultan Mehmed IV and Grand Vizier Fadil Ahmad Pasha conquered Podolia from the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.

1683

The Treaty of Bakhchisarai was signed in Bakhchisaray after the Russo-Turkish War (1676–1681) on January 3, 1681, by Russia, the Ottoman Empire, and the Crimean Khanate. They agreed to a 20-year truce and had accepted the Dnieper River as the demarcation line between the Ottoman Empire and Moscow's domain. All sides agreed not to settle the territory between the Southern Buh and Dnieper rivers. After the signing of the treaty, the Nogai hordes still retained the right to live as nomads in the southern steppes of Ukraine, while the Cossacks retained the right to fish in the Dnieper and its tributaries; to obtain salt in the south; and to sail on the Dnieper and the Black Sea. The sultan then recognized Muscovy's sovereignty in the Left-bank Ukraine region and the Zaporozhian Cossack domain, while the southern part of the Kiev region, the Bratslav region, and Podolia were left under Ottoman control. The 1683 battle of Vienna effectively ended Ottoman threats towards Central Europe, even though the empire remained strong in the Balkans for another hundred years. In the battle of Párkány the Ottoman lost the city of Esztergom.

1699

The Treaty (Peace) of Karlowitz (Karlovci) was signed on January 26, 1699 in Sremski Karlovci (, , , , ), a town in modern-day Serbia, concluding the Austro-Ottoman War of 1683–1697 in which the Ottoman side had finally been defeated at the Battle of Zenta.

Following a two-month congress between the Ottoman Empire on one side and the Holy League of 1684, a coalition of various European powers including the Habsburg Monarchy, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Republic of Venice and Peter I Alekseyevich's (later known as The Great) Muscovite Russia, largely due to claims of being a self-professed defender of the Christian Slavs, a treaty was signed on January 26, 1699. The Ottomans ceded most of Hungary, Transylvania and Slavonia to Austria while Podolia returned to Poland. Most of Dalmatia passed to Venice, along with the Morea (the Peloponnesus peninsula) and Crete, which the Ottomans regained in the Treaty of Passarowitz of 1718.

1718

The Treaty of Passarowitz or Treaty of Požarevac was the peace treaty signed in Požarevac (Serbian Cyrillic: Пожаревац, German: Passarowitz, Turkish: Pasarofça, Hungarian: Pozsarevác), a town in modern Serbia, on July 21, 1718, between the Ottoman Empire on one side and the Habsburg monarchy of Austria and the Republic of Venice on the other.

During the years 1714 and 1718, the Ottomans had been successful against Venice in Greece and Crete, but had been defeated at Petrovaradin (1716) by the Austrian troops of Prince Eugene of Savoy.

The treaty reflected the military situation. The Ottoman Empire lost the Banat of Temeswar, over a half of the territory of Serbia (from Belgrade to south of Kruševac), a tiny strip of northern Bosnia and Lesser Walachia (Oltenia) to Austria. Venice lost its possessions on the Peloponnesus peninsula and on Crete, gained by the Treaty of Karlowitz, retaining only the Ionian Islands, cities of Preveza and Arta and Dalmatia. Northern Bosnia, Serbia including Belgrade and Lesser Walachia were regained by Ottoman Empire in 1739 by the Treaty of Belgrade.

1739

The Treaty of Belgrade was a peace treaty signed on September 18, 1739 in Belgrade, Serbia, by the Ottoman Empire on one side and the Habsburg monarchy on the other. This ended the hostilities of the two-year Austro-Turkish War (1737–1739), in which the Habsburgs joined Imperial Russia in its fight against the Ottomans. With the Treaty of Belgrade, the Habsburgs ceded Northern Serbia with Belgrade to the Ottomans, and Oltenia, gained by the Treaty of Passarowitz in 1718, to Wallachia (an Ottoman subject), and set the demarcation line to the rivers Sava and Danube. The Habsburg withdrawal forced Russia to accept peace in the Russo-Turkish War (1735–1739) with the Treaty of Niš, whereby it was allowed to build a port at Azov, gaining a foothold on the Black Sea. The Treaty of Niš was a peace treaty signed on October 3, 1739, in Niš by the Ottoman Empire on one side and Russian Empire on the other. The Russo-Turkish War, 1735-1739 was the result of the Russian effort to gain Azov and Crimea as a first step towards dominating the Black Sea. In several successful raids led by Marshal Münnich, the Russians broke the resistance of the Crimean Khanate, crossed the Dniester into Moldavia and in 1739 marched as far as the Moldavian capital of Iaşi (Jassy), which they captured. The Habsburg monarchy entered the war in 1737 on the Russian side to get its share, but was forced to make peace with Ottomans at the separate Treaty of Belgrade, surrendering Northern Serbia, Northern Bosnia and the Banat of Craiova (Oltenia), and allowing the Ottomans to resist the Russian push toward Constantinople. In return, the Sultan acknowledged the Habsburg Emperor as the official protector of all Ottoman Christian subjects (see Millet (Ottoman Empire)), a position also claimed by Russia. The Austrian pullout forced Russia to accept peace at Niš, giving up its claims to Crimea and Moldavia, being allowed to build a port at Azov but not to build fortifications there or have any fleet in the Black Sea.

1774

The Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca (also spelled Kuchuk Kainarji) was signed on July 21, 1774, in Küçük Kaynarca, Dobruja (today Kaynardzha, Silistra Province, Bulgaria) between the Russian Empire (represented by Field-Marshal Rumyantsev) and the Ottoman Empire after the Ottoman Empire was defeated in the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774.

The treaty was by far the most humiliating blow to the once-mighty Ottoman realm. The Ottomans ceded the part of the Yedisan region between the Dnieper and Southern Bug rivers to Russia. This territory included the port of Kherson and gave the Russian Empire its first direct access to the Black Sea. The treaty also gave Russia the Crimean ports of Kerch and Enikale and the Kabarda region in the Caucasus.

The Ottomans also lost the Crimean Khanate, to which they were forced to grant independence. The Khanate, while nominally independent, was dependent on Russia and was formally annexed into the Russian Empire in 1783. The treaty also granted Russia several non-geographic items. It eliminated restrictions over Russian access to the Azov Sea (the 1739 Treaty of Belgrade had given Russia territory adjacent to the Azov Sea but had prohibited it from fortifying the area or using the sea for shipping).

1792