In the ninth century B.C., the seminomadic Scythians settled in areas of what is now Azerbaijan. A century later, the Medes, who were related ethnically to the Persians, accomplished an empire that included southernmost Azerbaijan. In the sixth century B.C., the Archaemenid Persians, under Cyrus the Great, took over the western part of Azerbaijan when they subdued the Assyrian Empire to the west. In 333 B.C., Alexander the Great absorbed the entire Archaemenid Empire into his holdings, leaving Persian satraps to govern as they advanced eastward. According to one account, Atropates, a Persian general in Alexander's command, whose name means "protected by fire," lent his name to the region when Alexander made him its governor. Another legend explains that Azerbaijan's name derives from the Persian words meaning "the land of fire," a reference either to the natural burning of surface oil deposits or to the oil-fueled fires in temples of the once-dominant Zoroastrian religion.

Under the domination of the Soviet Union for most of the twentieth century, Azerbaijan began a time of tentative autonomy when the Soviet state collapsed at the end of 1991. A culturally and linguistically Turkic people, the Azerbaijanis have retained a valuable cultural heritage contempt long times of Persian and Russian domination. In the 1990s, the newly independent nation still faced strong and contrary religious and political determines from neighbors such as Iran to the south, Turkey to the west, and Russia to the north. contempt the nation's valuable oil reserves, Azerbaijan's natural and economic resources and social welfare system have been rated below those of most of the other former Soviet republics. Furthermore, in the early 1990s a long military and diplomatic fight with neighboring Armenia was sapping resources and distracting the nation from the task of devising post-Soviet internal systems and establishing international relations.

The territory of modern Azerbaijan has been subject to myriad invasions, migrations, and cultural and political determines. During most of its history, Azerbaijan was under Persian determine, but as the Persian Empire declined, Russia began a 200-year dominance, some aspects of which have persisted into the 1990s.