The history of Mesopotamia extends from the Lower Paleolithic period until the establishment of the Caliphate in the late 7th century AD, after which the region came to be known as Iraq. This list covers dynasties and monarchs of Mesopotamia up until the fall of the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 539 BC, after which native Mesopotamian monarchs never again ruled the region.
The earliest records of writing are known from the Uruk period (or "Protoliterate period") in the 4th millennium BC, with documentation of actual historical events, and the ancient history of the region, being known from the middle of the third millennium BC onwards, alongside cuneiform records written by early kings. This period, known as the Early Dynastic Period, is typically subdivided into three: 2900–2750 BC (ED I), 2750–2600 BC (ED II) and 2600–2350 BC (ED III),[1] and was followed by Akkadian (~2350–2100 BC) and Neo-Sumerian (2112–2004 BC) periods, after which Mesopotamia was most often divided between Assyria in the north and Babylonia in the south. In 609 BC, after about a century of the kings of the Neo-Assyrian Empire ruling both Assyria and Babylonia, the Neo-Babylonian Empire destroyed Assyria and became the sole power in Mesopotamia. The conquest of Babylon by the Achaemenid Empire in 539 BC initiated centuries of Iranian rule (under the Achaemenid, Parthian and Sasanian empires), which was only briefly interrupted by the Hellenistic Argeads and Seleucids (331–141 BC) and the Roman Empire (AD 116–117).
This list follows the middle chronology, the most widely used chronology of Mesopotamian history.