Villages dotted the Urmia Plain as early as 2000 BC, their civilization shaped by the Kingdom of Van. Excavations near the city have unearthed utensils dating to the twentieth century BC. By the ninth century BC, an independent government ruled the western bank of Lake Urmia, eventually joining the Urartu empire. The Medes absorbed the region in the eighth century BC. This pattern -- absorption by successive empires -- would define Urmia for millennia. Safavids and Ottomans fought over it repeatedly. In 1622, Qasem Sultan Afshar, fleeing plague in Mosul, settled here and founded the Afshar community that still bears his people's name. The city served as capital of the Urmia Khanate from 1747 to 1865, and in 1795, the founder of the Qajar dynasty, Agha Muhammad Khan, was crowned within its walls.

What makes Urmia remarkable is not that empires coveted it, but that its people practiced nearly every major faith in the region simultaneously. By the early twentieth century, Christians -- Catholics, Protestants, adherents of the Assyrian Church of the East, and Armenian Orthodox -- comprised more than forty percent of the population. Muslims included both Shia and Sunni communities. Jews maintained a thriving presence, speaking Lishan Didan, a language still remembered by an aging community in Israel today. Bahais and Sufis added further layers. American missionaries arrived in 1835, led by Justin Perkins and Asahel Grant, establishing the first U.S. Christian mission in Iran. The city became, in the words of scholars, the spiritual capital of the Assyrian people. Four churches still stand in the central district: two Assyrian Church of the East, one Armenian, one Chaldean.

World War I shattered Urmia's fragile coexistence. In late 1914, Ottoman forces crossed into Persia and destroyed Christian villages before war was even formally declared. Thousands of Christians fled to the city. By January 1915, between 20,000 and 25,000 refugees were stranded in Urmia, with nearly 18,000 crowding into Presbyterian and Lazarist mission compounds. Disease killed many. Between February and May 1915, Ottoman forces carried out mass executions, looting, and kidnappings. Dozens of men, including Mar Dinkha, bishop of Tergawer, were executed at the Lazarist compound on February 23 and 24. The violence was not one-sided. After Russia's withdrawal following the 1917 revolution, Assyrian and Armenian militia sometimes killed Muslims without provocation. In 1918, ethnic violence engulfed the region from all directions. The Kurdish chieftain Simko Shikak killed the Assyrian patriarch Mar Shimun in March. Reprisals spiraled. Christians were massacred in Salmas and Urmia. When the Ottoman army invaded in July 1918, tens of thousands of Assyrians fled south toward British lines in Hamadan. The Chaldean archbishop Toma Audo was among those killed in the sacking of the city.

The demographic transformation was devastating. A city that had been nearly half Christian became overwhelmingly Muslim. During the era of Reza Shah Pahlavi, Assyrians were invited to return, and several thousand did. Today approximately 5,000 Assyrians remain in the city. The Jewish community departed after the establishment of Israel in 1948. Yet Urmia's multicultural character has not vanished entirely. Azerbaijanis form the majority of the population, alongside significant Kurdish, Assyrian, and Armenian minorities. The city still functions as a trading center for a fertile agricultural region renowned for its apples, grapes, and tobacco. Its churches and cathedrals survive as tangible reminders of a diversity that once defined it. Ethnic tensions persist -- as recently as March 2025, large demonstrations erupted over competing claims to the city's identity. Urmia endures as it always has: claimed by many, belonging fully to none, shaped by the friction of communities living in proximity across centuries.