Tourism as a modern phenomenon emerged during the 19th century. Its experiences and practices were constantly in flux, being mediated not only by advancements in transportation technologies but also by the increasing production of touristic ephemera, ranging from postcards to guidebooks.

19th-century tourist guidebooks provide valuable insights into the evolving nature of tourism. Designed to make unfamiliar destinations familiar and consumable to the new tourist classes, guidebooks offer a plethora of temporally and spatially encoded information about places. John Murray’s guidebooks were among the most prominent publications of this sort. They were set apart by the fact that rather than merely providing a list of attractions, they provided routes to be taken by the tourist. 

The lands controlled by the Ottoman Empire held a particular allure for 19th-century tourists seeking sites of historical significance or an exotic 'eastern' experience. Consequently, some of the earliest guidebooks by John Murray focused on Southwest Asia, following the trend set by publications about continental Europe.

Three guidebooks published by John Murray in 1854, 1878, and 1895 extensively cover Southwest Asia across a period of significant change within the Ottoman Empire. By visualizing the suggested routes in these three books spanning the second half of the 19th century, this project aims to shed light on the evolving Ottoman tourist landscapes. 

Despite the fact that the Ottoman Empire held territories both in Europe and Asia, Touring Ottoman Lands focuses particularly on routes across Southwest Asia.  While the 1854 publication, A Handbook for Travellers in Turkey: Describing Constantinople, European Turkey, Asia Minor, Armenia, and Mesopotamia, includes a section that depicts the routes in the European sections of the Ottoman Empire, this section is left out of this platform as the subsequent 1878 and 1895 volumes do not include information on European routes. 

Routes included in Murray’s Handbooks for Travellers follow a certain logic. Often, though not always, route descriptions start with a table, listing locations along the route and how long it would take to reach each.  Then, route texts introduce each stop in order and often provide directions to the next stop.  At popular tourist attractions, such as Ephesus, Murray’s guidebooks provide detailed descriptions, however other stops might be briefly mentioned with a succinct sentence or two. 

While some paths between locations were clearly indicated in the books, others tend to be vague.  In those instances, the best paths were determined with the aid of historic maps and through a reading of the landscape. However, considering the cartographic representations of the mid-19th century are far from exact, there is a degree of interpretation in the maps presented on this platform. 

It is also important to note that place names mentioned in Murray’s guidebooks were transliterated according to how they sounded to foreign visitors to Ottoman lands.  Therefore, places often have different spellings among the three books visualized on this website.  Another important aspect of place names in this region involves the changes that took place during the transition from the Ottoman Empire to new nation states.  In the process of nation building, particularly in Turkey, many place names were changed. Therefore, some place names do not sound anything like they did in the past. Some places were indeed impossible to locate with certainty.

The routes presented here were mapped in QGIS and are displayed using Google MyMaps.  Data curation for 1878 and 1895 is ongoing. 

The guidebooks used in the project are: