According to Urartian and Assyrian inscription Kingdom of the Urartian's historical geography

Urartians, who were mentioned in written sources of Assyria as ?Uruatri? and made an appearance in history in 1200 B.C., dominated a wide geography which was from the Euphrates in the west to Azerbaijani of Iran in the east and from Lake Sevan and The Aras in the north to The Taurus Mountains in the south and South of Lake Urmia and became one of the largest states of The Near East.The core region of the kingdom is the present day?s Van Castle and the surroundings around this region and thus Urartu Kingdom are sometimes mentioned as ?Kingdom of Van.? Van which appeared to be a natural castle possessed all the conditions in order to establish and develop a large capital. However, the other cities which were situated in East Anatolia could not have such a great political and historical importance. Generally, Urartian habitations spread out the lands of Georgia, Nakhchevan, Iran, Iraq and especially East Anatolia.Urartu Kingdom, which was the greatest rival of Assyria for three hundred years, managed to create a distinctive culture in spite of the steep and uneven geography and severe climate conditions of East Anatolia. Urartians, who created original works of art in mine work, bronze work and especially in architecture, proved their high level of civilization by magnificent castles, monumental sanctuaries, enormous palaces and many-chambered rock tombs which they built on escarpments. They made innovations which were rarely seen in quality in the realm of public works in history and we can observe that they opened long channels which can be used today, built artificial lakes and dams and created vineyards and gardens so as to make productive this rugged geography and irrigate the lands.According to the written sources of Assyria and Urartu, either the analysis of scriptures which was obtained from the region where Urartuspread out or the increasing amount of excavations enabled to take important steps on the subject of historical geography studies. With the archeological evidences, which were attained as the consequence of excavation and survey researches held until today, we can observe that Urartu culture had spread out to an area within a great extent which was more than we estimated, effected the other cultures around and became a source of inspiration to the states which were going to be formed in that region in the future.