Geographic HistoryMap of the Seljuk Empire
On the Geographic History map, the Seljuk Empire appears from 1038 to 1194. It reaches its largest mapped extent in 1097: about 3.3 million km² across 87 provinces.
The Seljuk Empire was built by Turkic warriors under Tughril Beg, who took Baghdad in 1055 and ruled as sultan in the name of the Abbasid caliph. Their victory over Byzantium at Manzikert in 1071 opened Anatolia to Turkish settlement and helped set off the Crusades. The empire fragmented after 1092, and the last Great Seljuk sultan died in 1194.
Mapped area over time
The Seljuk Empire on the world maps
Largest other states in 1097
| State | Mapped area |
|---|---|
| Cumans | 3.2 million km² |
| Song dynasty | 2.9 million km² |
| Almoravids | 2.5 million km² |
| Liao | 2.3 million km² |
| Kara-Khanid | 1.4 million km² |
| Fatimid Caliphate | 1.3 million km² |
| Naimans | 1.2 million km² |
| Ghaznavid | 1 million km² |
About this map
Territory comes from the Chronas historical dataset used by the Geographic History app. Areas are approximate, computed from about 2,400 province shapes, and describe this map rather than official historical figures - border data for the ancient and medieval world is necessarily a reconstruction.
Every year has a map
Drag a timeline across 2,500 years in the free Geographic History app - every province, ruler and battle, also offline.
