Ottoman Greeks (Greek: Οθωμανοί Έλληνες, Turkish: Osmanlı
Rumları) were ethnic Greeks who lived in the Ottoman Empire
(1299–1923), the Republic of Turkey's predecessor. Ottoman
Greeks, who were Greek Orthodox Christians, belonged to the Rum
Millet (Millet-i Rum). They were concentrated in what is today
modern Greece and Greek Macedonia, western Asia Minor
(especially in and around Smyrni), central Anatolia (espacially
Cappadocia), northeastern Anatolia (especially in Erzurum
vilayet, in and around Trebizond and in the Pontic Alps (roughly
corresponding to the medieval Greek kingdom of Pontus, which was
situated along the southeastern shores of the Black Sea and the
highlands of the interior). There were also sizeable Greek
communities elsewhere in the Ottoman Balkans, Ottoman Armenia,
and the Ottoman Caucasus, including in what, between 1878 and
1917, made up the Russian Caucasus province of Kars Oblast, in
which Pontic Greeks, northeastern Anatolian Greeks, and Caucasus
Greeks who had collaborated with the R