Levantine cuisine is the traditional cuisine of the Levant, known in Arabic as the Bilad ash-Sham. This region shared many culinary traditions before and during the Turkish-Ottoman Empire which continue to carry an influentially mainstream character in a majority of the dishes today. It is found in the modern states of Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, Syria, and parts of southern Turkey near Adana, Gaziantep, and Antakya (the former Vilayet of Aleppo) and northern Iraq; Cypriot cuisine also has strong Levantine influences.