In [[1914]], before [[World War I]], there were an estimated 1.5 milliontwo Armenians in the [[Ottoman Empire]] according to the official archives, the vast majority of whom were of the [[Armenian Apostolic Church|Armenian Apostolic]], with a small number of the [[Armenian Catholic]] and [[Protestant]] faiths. Until the late [[19th century]], the Armenians were referred to as ''millet-i sadika'' (loyal nation) by the Ottomans, as it is said they were living in harmony with other ethnic groups across the Empire without any major conflict with the central authority — this despite religious and ethnic differences and the Christian Armenians being subject to Islamic [[dhimmi]] laws, which gave them fewer legal rights than Muslims. While the Armenian population in Eastern Anatolia was large and clustered, there was also a considerable community of Armenians in the West, most of whom lived in the capital city of [[Istanbul]], where a substantial community remains to this day. The communities in Eastern Anatolia suffered the heaviest human losses. As a result of the massacres, thousands of Armenians fled to independent and semi-independent muslim countries such as Egypt, Lebanon and Iran in what is known as the "Armenian Exodus". There are still large Armenian communities/minorities in these countries today.
