Persian Empire timeline
This chart puts 16 empires and dynasties of Iran on one timeline in order, from Median kingdom (c. 678 to 550 BCE) to Islamic Republic of Iran (1979 CE to the present). On these dates, Parthian Empire lasted longest, about 470 years.
See it on the interactive chart
- Median kingdomc. 678 to 550 BCE
- Achaemenid Empire550 to 330 BCE
- Seleucid Empire312 to 63 BCE
- Parthian Empire247 BCE to 224 CE
- Sasanian Empire224 to 651 CE
- Buyids934 to 1062 CE
- Great Seljuk Empire1037 to 1194 CE
- Khwarazmian Empire1077 to 1231 CE
- Ilkhanate1256 to 1335 CE
- Timurid Empire1370 to 1507 CE
- Safavid Empire1501 to 1736 CE
- Afsharid dynasty1736 to 1796 CE
- Zand dynasty1751 to 1794 CE
- Qajar dynasty1789 to 1925 CE
- Pahlavi Iran1925 to 1979 CE
- Islamic Republic of Iran1979 CE to the present
- Iranian
- Greek
- Turkic
- Mongolic
In order
Median kingdom
Median polity centred on Ecbatana. Allied with Babylon, the Medes overthrew Assyria by 612 BCE, and Cyrus the Great took Ecbatana in 550 BCE. Many historians now doubt Herodotus's picture of a Median empire and see a loose tribal confederacy.
Achaemenid Empire
Cyrus the Great and his successors built the largest empire of its time, from Egypt and Thrace to the Indus, joined by the Royal Road and run by satraps. Alexander conquered it by 330 BCE after Gaugamela.
Seleucid Empire
Greek state founded by Seleucus I, which at its height stretched from Anatolia and the Levant to Central Asia. It lost Mesopotamia and Iran to the Parthians and shrank to a rump state in Syria before Pompey abolished it in 63 BCE.
Parthian Empire
Arsacid dynasty founded by Arsaces I, chief of the Parni, who conquered Parthia in Iran's northeast. It destroyed Crassus's Roman army at Carrhae in 53 BCE and became a centre of trade on the Silk Road between Rome and Han China.
Sasanian Empire
Persian dynasty that revived Zoroastrianism as its official religion and fought repeated wars with Rome and Byzantium. Exhausted by the war of 602 to 628, it fell to the Muslim conquest, and the last shah, Yazdegerd III, was killed in 651.
Buyids
Shia dynasty of Daylamite origin that took Baghdad in 945 and made the Abbasid caliph a figurehead. Under Adud al-Dawla it stretched from the Byzantine border to Khorasan, and its emirates fell to the Ghaznavids and Seljuks by 1062.
Great Seljuk Empire
Oghuz Turks who took Baghdad in 1055, beat Byzantium at Manzikert in 1071 and ruled from Central Asia to Syria. The vizier Nizam al-Mulk founded the Nizamiyya madrasas, and the empire split after Malik-Shah I died in 1092.
Khwarazmian Empire
Turkic shahs of Khwarazm who replaced the Seljuks in Iran around 1194. Muhammad II's killing of Mongol envoys brought Genghis Khan's invasion of 1219, and the last shah died in 1231.
Ilkhanate
Mongol khanate founded by Hulagu, who sacked Baghdad in 1258. Ghazan converted to Islam in 1295 and his vizier Rashid al-Din wrote a history of the world. It broke apart after Abu Sa'id died in 1335.
Timurid Empire
Timur's campaigns sacked cities from Delhi to Damascus, and at Isfahan an eyewitness counted towers of heads. His son Shah Rukh ruled from Herat, a centre of the Timurid Renaissance, and the Uzbeks took the last Timurid states by 1507.
Safavid Empire
Dynasty of a Sufi order of Iranian (possibly Kurdish) origin, carried to power by Turkoman Qizilbash tribes. Ismail I made Twelver Shi'ism the state religion, Shah Abbas I remade Isfahan as his capital from 1598, and Afghans took Isfahan in 1722.
Afsharid dynasty
Nader Shah, a general from the Turkoman Afshar tribe, was crowned in 1736 and sacked Delhi in 1739, carrying off the Peacock Throne. After his assassination in 1747 his heirs held only Khorasan.
Zand dynasty
Karim Khan Zand ruled all of Iran except Khorasan from Shiraz, refusing the title of shah and calling himself Vakil ol-Ro'aya (Advocate of the People). The Qajar Agha Mohammad Khan executed the last ruler, Lotf Ali Khan, in 1794.
Qajar dynasty
Turkic dynasty that made Tehran the capital and lost the Caucasus to Russia by 1828. The Constitutional Revolution created a parliament in 1906, and in 1925 the Majles deposed the Qajars and made Reza Khan shah.
Pahlavi Iran
Reza Shah centralised the state and expanded infrastructure and education. A 1953 coup organised by British and American intelligence returned his son Mohammad Reza to full power, and the 1979 revolution overthrew the monarchy.
Islamic Republic of Iran
Theocratic republic founded by Ayatollah Khomeini after the 1979 revolution. It fought Iraq from 1980 to 1988, and Ali Khamenei was supreme leader from 1989 until he was killed in 2026. Israeli and US strikes hit its nuclear sites in June 2025.
Major events
- Fall of Nineveh. Babylonians and Medes capture the Assyrian capital after a two-month siege and loot it. Within three years the Neo-Assyrian Empire is gone.
- Cyrus takes Babylon. After defeating the Babylonians at Opis, Cyrus the Great enters Babylon, which Persian-era texts say fell without battle. He lets deported peoples, including the Judeans, return home.
- Battle of Gaugamela. Alexander defeats Darius III near Erbil. Babylon, Susa and Persepolis fall within months, and the Achaemenid Empire is finished.
- Battle of Carrhae. Parthian horse archers and cataphracts under Surena destroy the army of Marcus Licinius Crassus near Carrhae (Harran), one of the most crushing defeats in Roman history. Crassus is killed.
- Battles of Yarmouk and Qadisiyyah. Arab armies crush the Byzantines at the Yarmouk River and then the Sasanians at Qadisiyyah, opening Syria and Iraq to Islamic rule.
- Battle of Manzikert. Seljuk sultan Alp Arslan defeats and captures Emperor Romanos IV. Turks move west into Anatolia, which slowly becomes Turkish.
- Mongols sack Baghdad. Hulagu's army storms Baghdad, kills the caliph al-Musta'sim and many thousands of residents, ending the Abbasid caliphate in Iraq.
- Battle of Ain Jalut. The Mamluks of Egypt defeat a Mongol army in Galilee, a rare major Mongol defeat that halts their advance toward Egypt.
- Battle of Chaldiran. Selim I's Ottoman army, with heavy artillery the Safavids lack, defeats Ismail I. The Ottomans annex Eastern Anatolia and briefly occupy the Safavid capital Tabriz.
- Oil struck at Masjed Soleyman. William Knox D'Arcy's drillers find oil in southwest Iran, the first big strike in the Middle East. The Anglo-Persian Oil Company, later BP, is founded in 1909.
- Iran crisis of 1946. Soviet forces stayed in northern Iran past the agreed deadline while separatist Azerbaijani and Kurdish states were proclaimed. Negotiation by premier Ahmad Qavam and US pressure led to Soviet withdrawal and the end of both states.
- Iranian Revolution. Mass protests drive out the shah and Ayatollah Khomeini founds an Islamic Republic. Students seize the US embassy in Tehran that November.
- Iran-Iraq War. Iraq invades Iran in September 1980. Eight years of trench warfare and attacks on civilians, including Iraqi chemical attacks, cause around 500,000 deaths before a UN-brokered ceasefire takes effect in August 1988.
Questions
What is the order of empires and dynasties of Iran?
By start date: Median kingdom, Achaemenid Empire, Seleucid Empire, Parthian Empire, Sasanian Empire, Buyids, Great Seljuk Empire, Khwarazmian Empire, Ilkhanate, Timurid Empire, Safavid Empire, Afsharid dynasty, Zand dynasty, Qajar dynasty, Pahlavi Iran and Islamic Republic of Iran.
Which of the empires and dynasties of Iran lasted longest?
On this timeline, Parthian Empire, at about 470 years (247 BCE to 224 CE).
How many empires and dynasties of Iran were there?
This timeline shows 16. Other lists count differently, depending on how they treat rival states and periods of division.
Which came first?
Median kingdom, c. 678 to 550 BCE, is the earliest on this timeline.
Where do these dates come from?
Each row's dates were checked against the sources listed on that row's own page, mostly English Wikipedia articles, which cite the underlying scholarship. Dates that are uncertain are marked c.