Historical Iranian peoples

The Scythians ( or ) or Scyths (), also known as the Pontic Scythians, were an ancient Eastern Iranic equestrian nomadic people who migrated during the 9th to 8th centuries BC from Central Asia to the Pontic Steppe in modern-day Ukraine and Southern Russia, where they remained until the 3rd century BC.

empire in Central and South Asia (30–375 AD)

thumb|300px|Sarmatian cataphracts depicted on [[Trajan's Column, 2nd century CE.]]

The Alans () were an ancient and medieval Iranic nomadic pastoral people who migrated to what is today the North Caucasus; some continued on to Europe and later North Africa. They are generally regarded as part of the Sarmatians, and possibly related to the Massagetae. Modern historians have connected the Alans with the Central Asian Yancai of Chinese sources and with the Aorsi of Roman sources. Having migrated westwards and becoming dominant among the Sarmatians on the Pontic–Caspian steppe, the Alans are mentioned by Roman sources in the . At that time they had settled in the region north of

thumb|upright|Artistic representation of a Median man

The Cimmerians were an ancient Eastern Iranic equestrian nomadic people originating in the Pontic–Caspian steppe, part of whom subsequently migrated into West Asia. Although the Cimmerians were culturally Scythian, they were ethnically distinct from the Scythians proper, to whom the Cimmerians were related and who displaced and replaced the Cimmerians.

thumb|200px|Cataphract-style parade-armour of a Saka royal, also known as "The Golden Warrior", from the [[Issyk kurgan, a historical burial site near Almaty, Kazakhstan, 400–200 BC.]]

former country

300px|thumb|right|Map depicting the Achaemenid Empire in BC, by [[William Robert Shepherd (1923). The Cadusii are shown in the northern part of the empire.]] The Cadusii (also called Cadusians; , Kadoúsioi; Latin: Cadusii, Arabic:Qādūsīān) were an ancient Iranian tribe that lived in the mountains between Media and the shore of the Caspian Sea, an area bordering that of the Anariacae and Albani. The Dareitai and Pantimati people may have been part of the Cadusii.

The Dahae, also known as the Daae, Dahas or Dahaeans (; ; , ; , ; , ; ; ; Persian: ) were an ancient Eastern Iranian nomadic tribal confederation, who inhabited the steppes of Central Asia.

thumb|upright=1.5|The Roman empire under Hadrian (ruled 117–138), showing the location of the Roxolani Sarmatians in the [[Wallachian plain (Romania)]] The Roxolani or Rhoxolāni ( , ; ) were a Sarmatian people documented between the 2nd century BC and the 4th century AD, first east of the Borysthenes (Dnieper) on the coast of Lake Maeotis (Sea of Azov), and later near the borders of Roman Dacia and Moesia. They are believed to be an offshoot of the Alans.

thumb|The Kandahar Bilingual Rock Inscription of Ashoka, in which the Kambojas are mentioned. The Kambojas were a southeastern Iranian people who inhabited the northeastern most part of the territory populated by Iranian tribes, which bordered the Indian lands. They only appear in Indo-Aryan inscriptions and literature, being first attested during the later part of the Vedic period.

thumb|Sculpted image of a Sarmatian from the Casa degli Omenoni

Ossetian ethnic group of Hungary

thumb|upright=.5| Drangiana or Zarangiana (, Drangianē; also attested in Old Western Iranian as 𐏀𐎼𐎣, Zraka or Zranka, was a historical region and administrative division of the Achaemenid Empire. This region comprised territory around Hamun Lake, wetlands in endorheic Sistan Basin on the Iran-Afghan border, and its primary watershed Helmand river in what is nowadays southwestern region of Afghanistan. The historic Drangiana roughly corresponds with the modern Sistan region.

Kangju (; Eastern Han Chinese: kʰɑŋ-kɨɑ < *khâŋ-ka (c. 140 BCE)) was the Chinese name of a kingdom in Central Asia during the first half of the first millennium CE. The name Kangju is now generally regarded as a variant or mutated form of the name Sogdiana. According to contemporaneous Chinese sources, Kangju was the second most powerful state in Transoxiana, after the Yuezhi. Its people, known in Chinese as the Kāng (康), were evidently of Indo-European origins, spoke an Eastern Iranian language, and had a semi-nomadic way of life. The Sogdians may have been the same people as those of Kangju

thumb|332x332px|Ethnic map of the Caucasus in the 5th and 4th centuries BC. The Caspians (, Kaspyn; , Káspioi; Aramaic: ܟܣܦܝ, kspy; , Kaspk’; , Caspiani) were a people of antiquity who dwelt along the southwestern shores of the Caspian Sea, in the region known as Caspiane. Caspian is the English version of the Greek ethnonym Kaspioi, mentioned twice by Herodotus among the Achaemenid satrapies of Darius the Great and applied by Strabo. The name is not attested in Old Iranian. According to Vasily Struve, the 'Caspians' was the name given to those Saka-Massagetae tribes that were located along th

The Kidarites, or Kidara Huns, were a dynasty that ruled Bactria and adjoining parts of Central Asia and India in the 4th and 5th centuries. The Kidarites belonged to a complex group of peoples known collectively in India as the Huna, and in Europe as the Chionites (from the Iranian names Xwn/Xyon), and may even be considered as identical to the Chionites. The 5th century Byzantine historian Priscus called them Kidarite Huns, or "Huns who are Kidarites". Chinese annals referred to them as the Ta Yüeh-chih, or Lesser Yüeh-chih. The Huna/Xionite tribes are often linked, albeit controversially, t

thumb|Parthian Warrior

The Daylamites or Dailamites (Middle Persian: Daylamīgān; Deylamiyān) were an Iranian people inhabiting the Daylam—the mountainous regions of northern Iran on the southwest coast of the Caspian Sea, now comprising the southeastern half of Gilan Province.

thumb|300px|Asia in 400 AD, showing the Xionites ("Chionites") and their neighbors. Xionites, Chionites, or Chionitae (Middle Persian: Xiyōn or Hiyōn; Avestan: X́iiaona-; Sogdian xwn; Pahlavi Xyōn) were a nomadic people in the Central Asian regions of Transoxiana and Bactria.

thumb|A map that shows the area of the Amards between the Sefid-Rud and [[Do Hezar River.]] The Amardians, widely referred to as the Amardi (and sometimes Mardi), were an ancient Iranian tribe living along the mountainous region bordering the Caspian Sea to the north, to whom the Iron Age culture at Marlik is attributed. They are said to be related to, or the same tribe as, the Dahae and Sacae. That is to say, they were Scythian. Herodotus mentions a tribe with a similar name as one of the ten to fifteen Persian tribes in Persis.

Huns in South Asia in the 5-6th century CE

ancient people from the Black Sea region

group of Xionite and/or Hephthalite tribes who, entered India in the 5th or 6th century

thumb|250px|Location of Tapuri, between Amardus and Hyrcania thumb|Map of Greco-Bactrian Kingdom with Tapuria clearly lying on the south shores of the [[Caspian Sea]] Tapuri or Tapyri () were a tribe in the Medes south of the Caspian Sea mentioned by Ptolemy and Arrian. Ctesias refers to the land of Tapuri between the two lands of Cadusii and Hyrcania.

thumb|A Sagartian, Apadana, [[Persepolis.]] thumb|upright|Behistun relief of Tritantaechmes. Label "This is Tritantaechmes. He lied, saying 'I am king of Sagartia, from the family of Cyaxares.'" The Sagartians (; Sagártioi; Old Persian: 𐎠𐎿𐎥𐎼𐎫𐎡𐎹 Asagartiya "Sagartian"; Elamite: 𒀾𒐼𒋼𒀀𒋾𒅀 Aš-šá-kar-ti-ia, Babylonian: 𒆳𒊓𒂵𒅈𒋫𒀀𒀀 KURSa-ga-ar-ta-a-a) were an ancient Iranian tribe, dwelling in the Iranian plateau. Their exact location is unknown; they were probably neighbors of the Parthians in northeastern Iran. According to Herodotus (1.125, 7.85), they were related to the Persians (

ancient Scythian tribe

484–665 Huna state in the Hindu Kush region

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The Sigynnae (; ) were an obscure nomadic people of antiquity belonging to the Scythian cultures who lived in the region corresponding to parts of present-day Hungary.

thumb|Persian Empire 500 BC Map showing Persis and Utians The Utians or Utii were ancient western Iranic nomadic camel-driving people, known primarily through the writings of the ancient Greek historian Herodotus. Herodotus describes them as "dressed in skin with the hair on".

The Cyrtians or Kyrtians (, ) were an ancient tribe in historic Iran near the Zagros Mountains. Based on their name, it had been suggested in the past that they may be ancestors of the Kurds or the source of the ethnonym Kurd, but this is deemed unlikely by modern scholarship.

Persian tribe

The Maspii were an Iranian tribe from Persis (Parsa in Old Persian) or Persia, in modern southwestern Iran. This tribe was one of the three main and leading Persian tribes, (the Persians were and are one of the Iranian peoples) alongside the Maraphii and the Pasargadae (from this later tribe came the Achaemenid royal family).