Persepolis (Old Persian: Pārśa, New Persian: Takht-e Jamshid or Pārseh), literally meaning "city of Persians", was the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Empire (ca. 550–330 BC). Persepolis is situated 70 km northeast of city of Shiraz in Fars Province in Iran.
The earliest remains of Persepolis date back to 515 BC. It exemplifies the Achaemenid style of architecture.
It was destroyed in a fire by Alexander the Great and his men, but whether this was by accident or for revenge is still debated. The ashes from that fire helped preserve the site until it was excavated in the 1930's.

UNESCO declared the ruins of Persepolis a World Heritage Site in 1979.
Persepolis is world renowned for its bas reliefs, and in particular for those on the sides of the Apadana staircases.

The site includes a 125,000 square metre terrace, partly artificially constructed and partly cut out of a mountain.

Around 519 BC, construction of a broad stairway was begun. The stairway was planned to be the main entrance to the terrace 20 metres above the ground. The dual stairway, known as the Persepolitan stairway, was built in symmetrically on the western side of the Great Wall.
Ruins of a number of colossal buildings exist on the terrace. All are constructed of dark-grey marble.

The first to make a real contribution to the study of the ruins and to identify them as the capital of ancient Persia, was a Dutchman, Cornelis de Bruijn (1652-1727), who visited Persepolis in 1704/1705. He made many beautiful drawings, which he published in 1711 in Reizen over Moskovie, door Persie en Indie. His drawings were long considered as the best representations available, until the first photographers visited the place in the twentieth century.

After a dig in 1878, which was organized by the Persian governor of the Shiraz region, the first archaeological research was executed by the Oriental Institute of Chicago: Ernst Herzfeld and F. Schmidt were working in Persepolis from 1931 to 1939. Ever since, archaelogists of many nations have been working at the Persepolis.