Economy and Trade

The Ottoman Empire sat at the crossroads of three continents and operated one of the early modern world's most sophisticated economic networks. This category explores Ottoman commerce and finance — Mediterranean and Silk Road trade routes, the akçe and kuruş coinage system, the timar land-grant network that funded the cavalry, tax-farming (iltizam and malikâne), guild (esnaf) organisations, and the great covered bazaars and bedestens of Istanbul, Bursa, and Cairo. Articles cover capitulations granted to European powers, the Bursa silk and Cairo coffee trades, monopolies, the long impact of the Age of Discovery on Ottoman revenues, and the Tanzimat-era banking and tax reforms that brought the empire into modern global finance.