The Armenian Genocide ( Հայոց ցեղասպանություն , Hayots tseghaspanutyun ) , also known as the Armenian Holocaust , was the Ottoman government 's systematic extermination of 1.5 million Armenians , mostly Ottoman citizens within the Ottoman Empire and its successor state , the Republic of Turkey . Turkey , the successor state of the Ottoman Empire , denies the word genocide as an accurate term for the mass killings of Armenians that began under Ottoman rule in 1915 .
The Armenian Genocide took place outside the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Turkey.