Ganja Khanate | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1747–1804 | |||||||||
 Russian map of the Ganja Khanate, dated 1901 | |||||||||
| Status | Khanate Under Iranian suzerainty | ||||||||
| Capital | Ganja | ||||||||
| Common languages | Persian (administration, judiciary, and literature) Arabic (religious studies) Turkic (locally) Armenian (locally) | ||||||||
| Religion | Shia Islam (majority) Armenian Apostolic Church (large minority) | ||||||||
| Khan | |||||||||
• 1748–1768 | Shahverdi Khan Ziyadoghlu (first) | ||||||||
• 1786–1804 | Javad Khan (last) | ||||||||
| History | |||||||||
• Established | 1747 | ||||||||
• Disestablished | 1804 | ||||||||
| |||||||||
The Ganja Khanate (also spelled Ganjeh; Persian: خانات گنجه, romanized: Khānāt-e Ganjeh) was a khanate under Iranian suzerainty, which controlled the town of Ganja and its surroundings, now located in present-day Azerbaijan.
It was governed by members of the Ziyadoghlu clan of the Turkic Qajar tribe, who had previously held the governorship of Karabakh under the Safavid dynasty of Iran. After the death of the Iranian shah (king) Nader Shah (r. 1736–1747), Shahverdi Khan Ziyadoghlu captured Ganja with the aid of the Georgian kings Teimuraz II (r. 1732–1762) and Heraclius II (r. 1744–1798). By paying tribute to either the Karabakh Khanate or Georgia, Shahverdi Khan tried to do everything possible to prevent the khanate from being attacked by his neighbors.
In 1762, he acknowledged the authority of the Zand ruler Karim Khan Zand (r. 1751–1779), who had established his authority in most of Iran. Following Karim Khan's death in 1779, internal chaos resumed. In 1795, Javad Khan submitted to the Qajar ruler Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar, whose authority was growing in Iran.