Media

   An ancient region and tribal kingdom that spanned the western and northwestern sectors of present-day Iran and bordered eastern Assyria. Media (Mada in Old Persian), which incorporated parts of the Zagros Mountains, was largely hilly but had several small, fertile plains as well. It was settled in the early first millennium B.c. by the Medes, an Indo-European-speaking group from farther north, and eventually became the focus of the shortlived but influential Median Empire, which helped bring about the fall of the Assyrian Empire in the seventh century B.c.Partof the reason that Media rose to prominence was that it controlled a major trade route running from Bactria and Parthia in the east, through Media, to Babylonia, Assyria, and Syria in the west. Even after the decline of the Median Empire, the region remained a populous, prosperous, and valuable part of the Persian, Seleucid, and Parthian realms that followed.

   See also: Medes; Median Empire; Persian Empire