The Ottoman Empire (1299–1922) was ruled from Istanbul. At its height it stretched from the gates of Vienna, across Anatolia and down through Arabia to the Indian Ocean. From west to east it took in what are now Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Israel/Palestine, Syria, Jordan, Iraq and parts of Iran. It had never bothered to make up names for most of these regions; in 1867 it simply divided them into administrative areas known as ‘Vilayets’,
