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The Byzantine Empire and Eastern Roman Empire are recent names used to describe the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered on its capital of Constantinople, referred to by its inhabitants simply as the Roman Empire (in Greek Βασιλεία Ῥωμαίων) or Romania (Ῥωμανία), its emperors continuing the unbroken succession of Roman emperors, preserving Greco-Roman legal and cultural traditions; to the Islamic world it was known primarily as روم (Rûm "Rome"). Due to the linguistic, cultural, and demographic dominance of medieval Greek, it was known to many of its western European contemporaries as Empire of the Greeks (see also the etymology section). As an outgrowth of the eastern portion of Empire founded in Rome, the Byzantine Empire's evolution into a separate culture from the West can be seen as a process beginning with Emperor Constantine's transferring the capital from Nicomedia in Anatolia to Byzantium, which was renamed Constantinople, on the Bosphorus. Read more...