Urartu (
Ուրարտու -
Urartu,
Assyrian:
māt Urarṭu;
Babylonian:
Urashtu), corresponding to Kingdom of Ararat (
Արարատյան Թագավորություն) or
Kingdom of Van (
Վանի Թագավորություն,
Urartian:
Biai, Biainili;) was a prehistoric
Iron Age Armenian kingdom centred around
Lake Van in the
Armenian Highlands.
Strictly speaking,
Urartu is the Assyrian term for a
geographical region, while "kingdom of Urartu" or "Biainili lands" are terms used in modern historiography for the Iron Age state that arose in that region.
That a distinction should be made between the geographical and the political entity was already pointed out by König (1955).
The landscape corresponds to the mountainous
plateau between
Asia Minor,
Mesopotamia, and the
Caucasus mountains, later known as the Armenian Highlands. The kingdom rose to power in the mid-9th century BC, but was conquered by
Media in the early 6th century BC.