Ganja is Azerbaijan's third largest city, with a population of around 335,600.
The city has been a historic and cultural centre throughout most of its existence. Until 1804, it was the capital of the Ganja Khanate; after Qajar Iran ceded it to the Russian Empire following the Treaty of Gulistan of 1813, it successively became part of the Georgia Governorate, Georgia-Imeretia Governorate, Tiflis Governorate, and Elisabethpol Governorate administrative divisions. After the dissolution of the Russian Empire and the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic, it became part of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, the Azerbaijan SSR of the Soviet Union and since 1991, the Republic of Azerbaijan.