Persepolis was the Greek name for the Persian capital now known as Takht-e Jamshid.
The city was called Parsa in Old Persian. Greek writers rendered the name as Persepolis, meaning roughly “city of the Persians,” and that form became standard in many modern languages. In Persian, the archaeological site is commonly called Takht-e Jamshid, or “Throne of Jamshid,” linking it to a legendary Iranian king.
Darius I began the monumental complex around 518 BCE, and Xerxes I and later rulers expanded it. Persepolis included audience halls, palaces, treasury buildings, monumental stairways, and reliefs showing delegations from across the empire. It functioned chiefly as a ceremonial royal center rather than the empire’s only working capital.
Alexander the Great captured and burned much of Persepolis in 330 BCE. The ruins remain one of the clearest surviving expressions of Achaemenid imperial art and architecture.