Khoy City

Khoy is one of the ancient regions of Iran with a moderate climate. The capital city being Khoy located 807 km. from Tehran. The word Khoy means 'salt', as the primary settlers in this region were the Medes due to the presence of a salt quarry here, called it as such. According to ancient records Khoy was a place having great importance, and was one of the branches of the Silk Road connecting east to west and passed through this city in pre-Islamic ages.

History Of Khoy:
Khoy was named in ancient times for the salt mines that made it an important spur of the Silk Route. 3000 years ago, a city existed on the area where Khoy is located nowadays, but its name became Khoy only from 14th centuries ago. In 714 BC, Sargon II passed the region of which Khoy is part of in a campaign against Urartu.
In the Parthian period, Khoy was the gateway of the Parthian Empire in the Northwest. Around the year 37 BC, Marc Anthony had crossed the plain that is located between Khoy and Marand during one of the many and frequent Roman-Parthian Wars.

One of the important historic elements of the city is the St. Sourp Sarkis church. Armenian documents wrote that the date of the making has to be either 332 or 333 AD. In the city and its surrounding villages, churches are seen and it is reported that Armenians have always been comprising a significant amount of the cities population, but the city was never an "Armenian city" (as in comprising a vast majority).
By the first half of the 11th century the Byzantine emperors were actively trying to round off their eastern territories, in an attempt to absorb the unstable Armenian dynasties. In 1021-2 emperor Basil II led his army as far as Khoy within 175 km of Dvin, and obtained the surrender of royalty from the Artsruni dynasty of Van.
In 1210, the city was conquered by the forces of Kingdom of Georgia sent by Tamar the Great under the command of Zakaria and Ivane Mkhargrdzeli. This was a response to the sacking of Georgian-controlled Ani which occurred in 1208 and left 12,000 Christians dead.