Achaemenid EmpireThe Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (əˈkiːmənᵻd; 𐎧𐏁𐏂, Xšāça, ) was the ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid dynasty in 550 BC, also known as the First Persian Empire. Based in Western Asia, it was the largest empire the world had ever seen at its time, spanning a total of from the Balkans and Egypt in the west to Central Asia and the Indus Valley in the east. Around the 7th century BC, the region of Persis in the southwestern portion of the Iranian plateau was settled by the Persians.
Iranian peoplesThe Iranian peoples or Iranic peoples are a diverse grouping of Indo-European peoples who are identified by their usage of the Iranian languages and other cultural similarities. The Proto-Iranians are believed to have emerged as a separate branch of the Indo-Iranians in Central Asia around the mid-2nd millennium BC. At their peak of expansion in the mid-1st millennium BC, the territory of the Iranian peoples stretched across the entire Eurasian Steppe, from the Danubian plains in the west to the Ordos Plateau in the east and the Iranian Plateau in the south.
HyrcaniaHyrcania (hərˈkeɪniə) (Ὑρκανία Hyrkania, Old Persian: 𐎺𐎼𐎣𐎠𐎴 Varkâna, Middle Persian: 𐭢𐭥𐭫𐭢𐭠𐭭 Gurgān, Akkadian: Urqananu) is a historical region composed of the land south-east of the Caspian Sea in modern-day Iran and Turkmenistan, bound in the south by the Alborz mountain range and the Kopet Dag in the east. The region served as a satrapy (province) of the Median Empire, a sub-province of the Achaemenid Empire, and a province within its successors, the Seleucid, Arsacid and Sasanian empires.
Mazandaran provinceMazandaran province (, Ostân-e Mâzandarân; Mâzerun) is one of the 31 provinces of Iran, located along the southern coast of the Caspian Sea and in the adjacent Central Alborz mountain range, in central-northern part of the country. The province covers an area of 23,842 km2. It was founded in 1937. At the time of the 2006 National Census, the province had a population of 2,893,087 in 783,169 households. The following census in 2011 counted 3,073,943 people in 931,007 households.