Persia: Ancient Persia

Ancient Persia , an introduction by Senta German The heart of ancient Persia is in what is now southwest Iran, in the region called the Fars. In the second half of the 6th century BCE, the Persians (also called the Achaemenids) created an enormous empire reaching from the Indus Valley to Northern Greece and from Central Asia to Egypt. Figure 6 6 1: The Persian Empire, 490 BCE. (Map via Smarthistory) Persia, historic region of southwestern Asia associated with the area that is now modern Iran. The term Persia was used for centuries and originated from a region of southern Iran formerly known as Persis, alternatively as Pārs or Parsa, modern Fārs. Persians [b] or the Persian people, [c] are an Iranian ethnic group from West Asia. [3] They are indigenous to the Iranian plateau and comprise the majority of the population of Iran. [5] They have common cultural system and are native speakers of the Persian language. [6][7][8] In the Western world, "Persian" was largely understood as a demonym for all Iranians rather than as an ethnonym for the Persian people, but this understanding shifted in the 20th century. The Persians were originally ...