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Our knowledge of geographical names of the Achaemenid period and the Achaemenid Empire is rather sketchy. From the royal inscriptions themselves the names of the countries (OPers. dahyāva) or satrapies of the empire and the ethnic names belonging to them are best known, in addition to a few toponyms, oronyms, and hydronyms. There are also large numbers of toponyms from the Elamite Persepolis tablets, which for the most part can neither be analyzed linguistically nor be localized exactly, however. Altogether those scanty onomastic relics do not allow any conclusions concerning the distribution, settlement, and spread of the various Iranian and non‐Iranian nations. Research on the geographical names of Iran, based primarily on the inexhaustible information found in the medieval Arabian geographers and the modern maps as well as on topographical studies on the spot, has been furthered especially by Wilhelm Eilers (cf. Eilers 1982, 1987, 1988). His publications made clear that such names were kept tenaciously for thousands of years over all political, cultural, ethnic, and linguistic changes. Eilers expounded also the thesis that we have always to reckon with the spread from one category of names to another (e.g. from the name of a country to its capital city, from a river's name to that of the country irrigated by it, and so on), so that in any case it must first be clarified what was named by the form in question at the outset.

From those later sources we cannot gain essential information, however, for the Achaemenid times. So we have only a few certain entries on a virtual map of the Achaemenid Empire (see Vallat 1993; Tavernier 2007). The names of countries attested in the appropriate lists in part are confirmed, as regards eastern Iran, by some passages in the corpus of the Avesta describing the countries settled by the “Aryans,” i.e. Iranians (esp. Yašt 10.13–15; Vīdēvdād 1.2–19). In the Old Persian inscriptions most of the names of eastern Iranian countries are attested not in the original dialect form but as transposed into the Old Persian equivalent (OPers. Harauvati‐ “Arachosia” vs. Avest. Harax^vaitī‐; OPers. Uvārazm‐ “Chorasmia” vs. Avest. X^vāirizǝm; OPers. Θatagu‐ “Sattagydia” vs. *Satagu‐), whereas the Babylonian, Aramaic, and in part also the Elamite collateral tradition normally has the original forms (e.g. Babyl. A‐ru‐a‐at‐ti, etc.; u‐ma‐ri‐iz‐mu, etc.; Sa‐at‐ta‐gu‐ú, etc.). Only the name of Bactria is attested in a non‐Persian, presumably the original, form as OPers. Bāxtri‐, whereas the Old Persian equivalent *Bāxçi‐ is reflected by Elam. Ba‐ak‐ši(‐iš). The ethnic names, which are derived from the names of the countries either without suffix (e.g. Pārsa‐ “Persia” → Pārsa‐ “Persian”) or with *‐iya‐ (e.g. Maka‐ “Mekrān” → Mac‐iya‐) and in one single case with lengthened grade (Margu‐ “Margiana” → Mārgav‐a‐), are listed by Schmitt (1999: p. 450).

Apart from the names of the royal capital cities Persepolis, Susa, Babylon, and Ecbatana (OPers. Pārsa, Çūšā, Bābiruš, Hagmatāna), only a few names of districts as well as of towns and fortresses are found in the royal inscriptions, among them several of Semitic origin (such as Izalā in Assyria or Arbairā/Babyl. Ar‐ba‐’‐il “Erbil”). One of the few names of the Elamite Persepolis tablets which can be localized with certainty is that of Shiraz (Elam. Ti‐ra‐(iz‐)zí‐iš, Ši‐ra‐iz‐zí‐iš [= MPers. syl’c', once also šyl’c'], probably rendering OPers. *Θīrāč‐; cf. Klingenschmitt 1980: p. 21). We are in a similar situation with the richest source of the classical geographical literature, viz. Ptolemy's “Geography,” which provides only a few connections with the Elamite evidence.

The two great rivers of the Near East, Euphrates and Tigris, are called OPers. Ufrātu‐ and Tigrā‐ respectively in the Bīsutūn inscription; both of these forms are to be understood as reinterpretations of the pre‐Semitic and probably even pre‐Sumerian hydronyms Akkad. Purattu, Idiglat, or Sumer. Buranun, Idigna by folk etymology: U‐frātu‐ as “With good fords” and Tigrā‐ as “Quick as an arrow‐shot.” The contrast between the slowly flowing and easily crossed Euphrates and the rapidly raging Tigris which is passable only by boat (cf. DB I 86 nāviyā) is extremely well confirmed by the actual conditions. Also the name of the Nile river is attested in one of the Suez inscriptions (DZc 9) as p‐i‐r‐a‐v/Pirāva/, the form of which obviously renders the Egyptian name p,’‐jtrw, “the river.”

Several Iranian rivers are called OIran. *Kuru‐ (Gk. Κῦρος, Κόρος), the name of which was discussed in great detail by Eilers (1964), who interpreted it as “blind,” i.e. either “dark, murky” (namely muddy) or as “silting up, drying up” or similar. Other hydronyms can be made out for the Achaemenid Empire only as resulting in a country's name (by application of a river's name for the whole land irrigated by it), e.g. OPers. Harauvati‐ “Arachosia” (cf. Schmitt 2001).

Hardly any oronym is attested for ancient times. From the royal Achaemenid inscriptions we know only Mt. Lebanon (OPers. Labnāna), where the cedar‐timber came from, and Mt. Pr◦ga (cf. NPers. Furg) and Mt. Arakadri, both of which probably are situated in southeastern Fārs.