Creating a Digital Gazetteer of the Ottoman World

The study of the Ottoman world includes a geography that today encompasses some 25-30 countries with source materials in as many or more languages for exploring a history that covers the period 1300-1923. A robust gazetteer is an essential tool for studying social and spatial networks in the Ottoman realm. However, no such tool exists. This paper will examine the work to date of the Digital Ottoman Platform, a multi-national interdisciplinary team of scholars endeavoring to create a functional digital gazetteer for the Ottoman world. The challenges of engaging regional expertise, creating taxonomies of administrative systems, locating and vetting sources, managing paradigms of labor and community engagement, and balancing the relationship between the technical aspect of DH work and humanities work will be addressed.