Who was the last reigning sultan of the Ottoman Empire?

Mehmed VI was the last reigning sultan of the Ottoman Empire.

Also known as Mehmed Vahdeddin, he became sultan on 4 July 1918, near the end of the First World War. He inherited an empire suffering military defeat, Allied occupation, political turmoil, and growing nationalist resistance in Anatolia.

Mehmed VI reigned until 1 November 1922, when the Grand National Assembly in Ankara abolished the Ottoman Sultanate. He left Constantinople shortly afterward aboard a British warship and spent his final years in exile. He died in Sanremo, Italy, in 1926.

A common mix-up involves Abdulmejid II, who became the final Ottoman caliph after the sultanate was abolished, but he was never a reigning sultan. Mehmed V was Mehmed VI’s immediate predecessor and ruled from 1909 to 1918. Abdul Hamid II ruled earlier, from 1876 to 1909, and was the last sultan to exercise effective control before the empire’s final crisis.