He was best known for recapturing previously held Assyrian territory and restoring Assyria to its natural borders, from Tur Abdin (southeast Turkey) to the foothills beyond Arbel (Iraq).
The accounts conclude with Ashur-Dan's building activities, stressing that he did not exploit the spoils of his campaign to enrich himself, but rather to honour and exalt the gods.
The fragmentary annals state that Ashur-Dan believed he was rightfully retaking Assyrian territory occupied by the Aramaeans in the recent past.
This was a key commercial point for Assyrians, through which they received horses and valuable lapis lazuli mined in northeast Afghanistan.
Ashur-Dan established government offices in all provinces, creating a strong administrative presence in the areas under his rule.
At the end of the millennium, Assyria was surrounded by enemies to the south, in and around Babylonia, to the west by the Arameans in Syria, and to the north and east by the Nairi people.
It was a uniformly structured political entity with well-defined and well-guarded borders, and the Assyrian kings certainly regarded it as a unified whole, "the land of Aššur", whose territory they constantly strove to expand.
To the west he marched as far as the Balikh river, to the south as far as the middle Euphrates, to the north as far as the southern regions of Lake Van, and to the east he penetrated the Zagros mountains.