Lydia

Lydia (Λυδία)
Ancient Region of Anatolia
Map of the Lydian Empire in its final period of sovereignty under Croesus (red lines = 7th century BC extent)
Location	Western Anatolia, Salihli, Manisa, Turkey
State existed	15th–14th centuries BC (as Arzawa) 1200–546 BC
Language	Lydian
Historical capitals	Sardis
Notable rulers	Gyges, Croesus
Persian satrapy	Lydia
Roman province	Asia, Lydia

Lydia (Assyrian: Luddu; Greek: Λυδία, Turkish: Lidya) was an Iron Age kingdom of western Asia Minor located generally east of ancient Ionia in the modern western Turkish provinces of Uşak, Manisa and inland İzmir. Its population spoke an Anatolian language known as Lydian.

At its greatest extent, the Kingdom of Lydia covered all of western Anatolia. Lydia (known as Sparda by the Achaemenids) was a satrapy (province) of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, with Sardis as its capital. Tabalus, appointed by Cyrus the Great, was the first satrap (governor). (See: Lydia (satrapy).)

Lydia was later the name of a Roman province. Coins are said to have been invented in Lydia around the 7th century BC.

The endonym Śfard (the name the Lydians called themselves) survives in bilingual and trilingual stone-carved notices of the Achaemenid Empire: the satrapy of Sparda (Old Persian), Aramaic Saparda, Babylonian Sapardu, Elamitic Išbarda, Hebrew סְפָרַד. These in the Greek tradition are associated with Sardis, the capital city of King Gyges, constructed during the 7th century BC.