Empire550 BCE – 330 BCE · 220 years
Achaemenid Persian Empire
The first empire to rule the known world from the Indus to the Aegean.
What it was
Founded by Cyrus the Great around 550 BCE, the Achaemenid Persian Empire pioneered satrapal administration, a postal system, royal roads, and a deliberate policy of religious tolerance for conquered peoples. Defeat by Alexander in the 330s BCE ended the dynasty but not the imperial template.
Why it mattered
Persia invented the multi-ethnic continental empire — every later one, from Rome to the British, borrowed something from its administrative playbook.
From Wikipedia
The Achaemenid Empire was an ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid dynasty in 550 BC. At peak, its territorial extent was roughly 5.5 million square kilometres, making it the largest empire of its time. Based in the Iranian plateau, it stretched from the Balkans and Cyrenaica in the west to the Indus Valley in the east, including Anatolia, Cyprus, Mesopotamia, the Levant, the South Caucasus, parts of Eastern Arabia, and large parts of Central Asia.
Wikipedia: Achaemenid Empire·CC BY-SA 4.0
Borders & accuracy
Solid borders are reconstructed from canonical historical-basemap data or hand-crafted from scholarly atlases.
- SOURCEaourednik / historical-basemaps
- DETAILhistorical-basemaps
- SNAPSHOT500 BCE
- POLITY TYPEstate
Wars of this empire40
Conflicts whose belligerents name this polity, best-documented first.
- Greco-Persian Wars499–449 BCEWorld-changing · 100K dead
- Macedonian Conquests of Alexander the Great336–323 BCEWorld-changing · 100K dead
- Battle of Salamis480 BCEWorld-changing · 50K dead
- Battle of Gaugamela331 BCEWorld-changing · 50K dead
- Battle of Marathon490 BCEWorld-changing · 13K dead
- Battle of Thermopylae480 BCEWorld-changing · 4.0K dead
- World-changing
- Battle of Plataea479 BCEWorld-changing
- Cyrus II's Conquest of Lydia555–540 BCEMajor conflict
- Cyrus II's Median Conquest553–550 BCEMajor conflict
- Battle of Pelusium (525 BCE)525 BCEMajor conflict
- Cambyses II's Egypt Invasion525–522 BCEMajor conflict
- Battle of Mycale479 BCEMajor conflict
- Battle of the Granicus334 BCEMajor conflict
- Battle of Issus333 BCEMajor conflict
- Alexander's Conquest of Egypt332–331 BCEMajor conflict
- Darius I's Indian Campaign520–515 BCESignificant
- Darius I's Danube Expedition514–513 BCESignificant
- Darius I's Scythian Campaign513–512 BCESignificant
- Darius I's Macedonian Campaign512–510 BCESignificant
- Battle of the Eurymedon469–466 BCESignificant
- Egyptian Revolt of Inaros460–454 BCESignificant
- Corinthian War395–387 BCESignificant
- Battle of Pelusium (343 BCE)343 BCESignificant
+ 16 more in the atlas.
Open in the atlas →Seeks the timeline to 550 BCE and fits the map to these borders.
Cite as: Achaemenid Persian Empire (550 BCE – 330 BCE). War Atlas. https://waratlas.org/e/achaemenid-persian-empire · Sources & methodology