Achaemenid Empire

The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire[20] (/əˈkiːmənɪd/; Old Persian: 𐎧𐏁𐏂, Xšāça, lit. 'The Empire'[21] or 'The Kingdom'[22]), was the ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC; the First Persian Empire.[23] Based in Western Asia, it was the largest empire the world had ever seen at its time, spanning a total of 5.5 million square kilometres (2.1 million square miles) from the Balkans and Egypt in the west to Central Asia and the Indus Valley in the east.[16][17]

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Achaemenid Empire 𐎧𐏁𐏂 Xšāça
550 BC–330 BC
Standard of Cyrus the Great[lower-alpha 1]
The Achaemenid Empire at its greatest territorial extent, under the rule of Darius I (522 BC–486 BC)[6][7][8][9]
Capital	Babylon[10] Pasargadae Ecbatana Susa Persepolis (ceremonial)
Common languages	Old Persian (official)[a] Aramaic (official, lingua franca)[b] Akkadian[c][11] Elamite[12] Greek[13] Median[14] See: Languages
Religion	Zoroastrianism (official) Mesopotamian religion[15] Judaism Vedic Hinduism Egyptian religion Greek religion See: Religion
Government	Monarchy
Kings[lower-alpha 2] or King of Kings[lower-alpha 3]
• 559–530 BC	Cyrus the Great
• 530–522 BC	Cambyses II
• 522–522 BC	Bardiya
• 522–486 BC	Darius I
• 486–465 BC	Xerxes I
• 465–424 BC	Artaxerxes I
• 424–424 BC	Xerxes II
• 424–423 BC	Sogdianus
• 423–405 BC	Darius II
• 405–358 BC	Artaxerxes II
• 358–338 BC	Artaxerxes III
• 338–336 BC	Arses
• 336–330 BC	Darius III
Historical era	Classical antiquity
• Persian Revolt	550 BC
• Conquest of Lydia	547 BC
• Conquest of Babylon	539 BC
• Conquest of Egypt	525 BC
• Greco-Persian Wars	499–449 BC
• Corinthian War	395–387 BC
• Second conquest of Egypt	343 BC
• Fall to Macedonia	330 BC
Area
500 BC[16][17]	5,500,000 km2 (2,100,000 sq mi)
Population
• [18]	17 million to 35 million
Currency	Daric, siglos
Preceded by Succeeded by Median Empire Neo-Babylonian Empire Lydia Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt Gandhara Sogdia Massagetae Empire of Alexander the Great Twenty-eighth Dynasty of Egypt
a. ^ Native language. b. ^ Official language and lingua franca.[19] c. ^ Literary language in Babylonia.

Around the 7th century BC, the region of Persis in the southwestern portion of the Iranian plateau was settled by the Persians.[24] From Persis, Cyrus rose and defeated the Median Empire as well as Lydia and the Neo-Babylonian Empire, marking the formal establishment of a new imperial polity under the Achaemenid dynasty.

In the modern era, the Achaemenid Empire has been recognized for its imposition of a successful model of centralized, bureaucratic administration; its multicultural policy; building complex infrastructure, such as road systems and an organized postal system; the use of official languages across its territories; and the development of civil services, including its possession of a large, professional army. Its advancements inspired the implementation of similar styles of governance by a variety of later empires.[25]

By 330 BC, the Achaemenid Empire was conquered by Alexander the Great, an ardent admirer of Cyrus the Great; the conquest marked a key achievement in the then-ongoing campaign of his Macedonian Empire.[26][27] As Alexander's death triggered the beginning of the Hellenistic period, most of the territory of the fallen Achaemenid Empire came under the rule of the Ptolemaic Kingdom and the Seleucid Empire, both of which had emerged as successors to the Macedonian Empire following the Partition of Triparadisus in 321 BC. Hellenistic rule remained in place for almost a century before the Iranian elites of the central plateau reclaimed power under the Parthian Empire.[24]