This dissertation project seeks to combine comparative with transnational approaches to empire-studies by zooming in on the Russian and Ottoman borderland regimes installed in the connected geography of the South Caucasus and Eastern Anatolia between the 1860s and 1920s. Specific attention is paid to the former Ottoman territories ceded to the Russian empire at the Berlin Conference (Kars, Ardahan, Batum), which will offer a useful vantage point for studying the strategies of incorporation of the newly acquired regions populated by non-Russian and non-Orthodox subjects to the Russian empire. Themes addressed in this dissertation include the production of topographical and ethnographic knowledge, practice of “population politics,” and imperial struggles over citizenship and loyalty in the Russo-Ottoman borderlands. The ultimate objective is to emphasize the shared historical experience of the Russian and Ottoman empires through a sustained focus on a common geography unified through ecological, mercantile, political, and international factors, without losing sight of the impact of imperial contestation on the lives of the region's local inhabitants.