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If there is any lesson that can be learned from history,
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it's that empires and countries come and go just like people do.
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They both have their entrances and their exits that are sometimes graceful and sometimes not.
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The Ottoman Empire almost seems like it's from ancient history,
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but Nintendo was founded at the same time the empire was
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still huge, and occupied parts of Europe and Africa.
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The Ottoman Empire had already been in a very long decline
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by this point, and
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finally, officially ceased to exist on 1922.
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That was nearly 100 years ago, but what would the Ottoman Empire
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look like today if it were to suddenly and unexpectedly
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come back into existence?
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Let's imagine a hypothetical Neo-Ottoman Empire with
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her borders restored to what they were at the Empire's territorial height
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back in 1683, right before
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the Ottomans lost the Siege of Vienna against the Polish and the Hapsburgs.
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If this happened a total of 31 modern countries
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across 3 continents would lose
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some or all of their land their territory to the Ottoman's.
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Despite looking big and scary on a map, it would all be a lot smaller than Australia.
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Australia apparently needs to get their act together filling up all this land though,
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because the Ottomans would have over 17 times
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their population, at around 426 million people.
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That makes the Neo-Ottoman Empire the third largest country in the world in terms of people.
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Obviously staying behind the usual suspects; India and China.
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The capital of the Ottoman Empire for hundreds of years was Constantinople, or Istanbul
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and that still all this time later would be the largest and most important
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city in the modern empire.
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Most of the top ten largest cities in the empire today would
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all be located in the Middle East except for two:
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Algiers in North Africa and Bucharest deeper in Europe.
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All of these cities and lands would mean that the Ottoman Empire today,
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like it was hundreds of years ago, would
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be a very diverse place with people from dozens of
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different backgrounds and religions. Arabs would
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make up the vast majority of the Ottoman Population at 48%
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while ethnic Turks would come in at second place at
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14.5%. Because of the large amount
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of territory in Eastern Europe, people from Slavic
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backgrounds would make up 11% of the Neo-Ottoman population.
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Followed up by large numbers of Kurds, Romanians, and
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Greeks. Based on those numbers, the Arabic and Turkish languages
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would be the most commonly spoken in the new empire.
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Probably followed next by French, owing to the old French
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colonial influencing places like Lebanon, Syria
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and Algeria. Moving on to the never controversial religious
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section of the video, The Abrahamic Phase would dominate the empire;
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Islam would be the single largest faith divided between 56% Sunnis and 8% Shias.
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Christians would make up an additional 22% and Jews another 2%, Atheists and Agnostics would make up
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3% while other beliefs and religions would make up the final
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9%. The Ottoman economy would definitely be a powerhouse with an estimated nominal GDP of around
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$3,675 trillion US Dollars. This would put the empire roughly on a par with the German economy and make it the 5th largest economy
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worldwide. The economic comparison with Germany is interesting though, because while the numbers appear similar,
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they don't exactly tell the whole story.
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Remember the Ottoman population is about
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426 million,
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while Germany's population is just
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a bit over 82 million,
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but still manages a slightly larger sized economy.
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This means that on average, a citizen from the Neo-Ottoman empire
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would be significantly poorer than a citizen from modern Germany.
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The poorest areas of the modern Ottoman state would be
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Syria, Moldova, and Ukraine, while the wealthiest areas
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would be Kuwait, Israel, and the territory taken
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from Saudi Arabia. The large economy and population inside
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the new Ottoman empire would make it capable of fielding the
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largest military in the world, estimated to be around
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8.1 million soldiers strong to begin with.
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Adding up all the territory included in the
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empire and their contributions to national defense, and the Ottoman military
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budget would be $137 billion dollars;
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the third largest highest in the world, behind the military juggernauts
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of China and the United States. When compared with other
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hypothetical countries that I've come up with in previous episodes of this
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series, the Neo-Ottoman Empire would match up
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extremely well. It would a very comperable
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population to a united Spanish Empire,
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but a much lower economy. The Ottomans would have
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a larger military to begin with than a reunited Mongol
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Empire, but the Mongol manpower base of 1.9
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billion people would probably cancel out that advantage
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pretty quickly. Which ever way you look at it, a reunified
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Ottoman Empire to the borders of 1683 would be a
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true 21st century greatpower. There are
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many problems that a modern Ottoman State would face though,
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with territory taken from Russia, The European Union, Saudi Arabia,
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and bordering Iran, the Ottoman Sate would face many
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external enemies. In addition to the vast internal
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differences that were part of the reason for the Ottoman Empire collapsing nearly
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100 years ago. Could the Ottoman Empire
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survive in the modern world or would it come crashing down
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all over again? Perhaps the best way of answering these questions
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would be to create a fan-fiction website and there's no better way
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of doing that than using Wix.