Urartu (a.k.a. Ararat, Urashtu) is the geographic name used during the Iron Age for the region that would later be known as the Armenian Highlands. The polity that emerged in the region as a confederation of tribes was the Kingdom of Van, which was centered around Lake Van in modern-day Turkey. The kingdom rose to power in the mid-9th century BC, but went into gradual decline and was eventually conquered by the Iranian Medes in the early 6th century BC. The geopolitical region would re-emerge as Armenia shortly after. Being heirs to the Urartian realm, the earliest identifiable ancestors of the Armenians are the peoples of Urartu.