Europe · High and late Middle Ages
Beylik of Karasi
drawn on the map 1305–1343
The Karasids (Karesioğulları), Beylik of Karesi, occupied the northwest around Balıkesir, later Bergama and Çanakkale, on the Sea of Marmara and the Dardanelles, conventionally c. 1296/1300–1345/1357. Founded by Karasi Bey, it is historically pivotal as the first beylik annexed by the Ottomans, c. 1345 (under Orhan).
- Shown on the map
- 1305–1343
- Peak area
- 31k km²
- Region
- Europe
Overview
The Karasids (Karesioğulları), Beylik of Karesi, occupied the northwest around Balıkesir, later Bergama and Çanakkale, on the Sea of Marmara and the Dardanelles, conventionally c. 1296/1300–1345/1357. Founded by Karasi Bey, it is historically pivotal as the first beylik annexed by the Ottomans, c. 1345 (under Orhan). Crucially, Karesi possessed an experienced fleet and a body of skilled frontier commanders; when the Ottomans absorbed it, these Karesi captains and their naval expertise passed into Ottoman service, giving the landlocked Osmanlı beylik its first serious maritime tradition—the foundation on which the crossing into Europe and later Ottoman sea power were built.
Common questions
- What was the Beylik of Karasi?
- The Karasids (Karesioğulları), Beylik of Karesi, occupied the northwest around Balıkesir, later Bergama and Çanakkale, on the Sea of Marmara and the Dardanelles, conventionally c. 1296/1300–1345/1357. Founded by Karasi Bey, it is historically pivotal as the first beylik annexed by the Ottomans, c. 1345 (under Orhan).
- When is the Beylik of Karasi shown on the map?
- The border data draws the Beylik of Karasi 1305–1343. The source samples borders at fixed dates, so a span can begin late or run on past the end.
- How large was the Beylik of Karasi?
- At its greatest extent drawn on this map, the Beylik of Karasi covered about 31,000 km². That is the largest area the border data gives it across the years it is drawn, not necessarily its greatest extent in history.
Sources
This compendium cites its sources once for the whole document rather than per territory. Its bibliography names the English Wikipedia articles for each beylik, khanate and principality as the primary basis, with Encyclopædia Britannica, the World History Encyclopedia, museum and academic sources (the Baku Presidential Library on the Shirvanshahs, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum on the Armenian Genocide) and the historiography of early Ottoman state formation (Wittek, Lindner, Kafadar, Lowry). The article this entry is anchored on:
- Wikipedia — Karasids en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karasids
This entry was last updated .
This entry was researched and drafted with AI from the sources above, and has not been reviewed by a historian. How entries are made
Text available under CC BY-SA 4.0: reuse it with a credit to The World Through Time and a link to this page. Passages drawing on the Wikipedia articles listed above are also licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 by their contributors.
Border geometry for the map itself comes from Cliopatria v0.12 (Seshat Global History Databank, CC-BY-4.0).
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