Ganja (Azerbaijani: Gəncə, Persian: گنجه – Ganje‎) is Azerbaijan's second-largest city with a population of just over 1,000,000. It was named Elisabethpol (Russian: Елизаветпо́ль, tr. Yelizavetpol; IPA: [jɪlʲɪzəvʲɪtˈpolʲ]) in the Russian Empire period. The city regained its original name Ganja in 1920 during the first part of its incorporation into the Soviet Union. However, its name was changed again in 1935 to Kirovabad (Russian: Кироваба́д; IPA: [kʲɪrəvɐˈbat]) and retained it throughout the later Soviet period from 1935. Finally in 1989, during Perestroika, the city regained the original name

Even though some sources from medieval Islamic time attribute the building of the town to a Muslim Arab ruler, modern historians believe that the fact that the name Ganja derives from the New Persian ganj ("treasure") and in Arabic source the name is recorded as Janza (from the Middle Persian ganza) suggests that the city existed in pre-Islamic times and was likely founded in the 5th century.[2] The area in which Ganja is located was known as Arran from the 9th to 12th century; its urban population spoke mainly in the Persian language