Persian Empire

The Persian Empire, also called the Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire, was an Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid dynasty in 550 BC. Based in what is now Iran, it was the largest empire at that point in history, spanning 5.5 million square kilometers (2.1 million square miles) from the Balkans and Egypt in the west to the Indus Valley in the southeast. Alexander the Great conquered it in 330 BC.