Levantines (Latin Christians)

Levantines or Franco-Levantines (Arabic: شوام‎‎; French: Levantins; Italian: Levantini; Greek: Φραγκολεβαντίνοι Frankolevantini; Turkish: Levantenler or Tatlısu Frenkleri) are Latin Catholics of the Catholic Church who descend from Catholics who lived under the Ottoman Empire, including modern Levant (Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Jordan) and Turkey.

Levantines were mostly of Italian (especially Venetian and Genoese), French, or other Euro-Mediterranean origin. They have been living in the eastern Mediterranean coast of Lebanon and Syria since the middle Byzantine or the Ottoman era and in Constantinople (Istanbul), Smyrna (Izmir) and other parts of Anatolia (such as the port towns of Amasra, Sinop, Trabzon, Enez, Foça, Çeşme, Bodrum, Alanya, Mersin, Iskenderun, etc., where the colonies of Genoese and Venetian merchants existed) in present-day Turkey.