Situated on caravan and water routes, it developed from a village into a large trading centre, before being conquered by Timur in 1395 and captured by Ivan the Terrible in 1556 and in 1558 it was moved to its present site.

The oldest economic and cultural center of the Lower Volga region,[16] it is often called the southernmost outpost of Russia,[17] and the Caspian capital.

Starting in A.D. 1324, Ibn Battuta, the famous Berber Muslim traveler, began his pilgrimage from his native city of Tangier, present-day Morocco to Mecca.

Due to the cold water, Özbeg Khan ordered the people of Astrakhan to lay many bundles of hay down on the frozen river.

[21][22] In 1556, the khanate was conquered by Ivan the Terrible, who had a new fortress, or kremlin, built on a steep hill overlooking the Volga in 1558.

A year later, the Ottoman sultan renounced his claims to Astrakhan, thus opening the entire Volga River to Russian traffic.

[citation needed] The Ottoman Empire, though militarily defeated, insisted on safe passage for Muslim pilgrims and traders from Central Asia as well as the destruction of the Russian fort on the Terek River.

Many merchants from Armenia, Safavid Persia, Mughal India,[24][25] and Khivan Khanate settled in the town, giving it a cosmopolitan character.

Built by masters from Yaroslavl, they retain many traditional features of Russian church architecture, while their exterior decoration is definitely baroque.

In March 1919 after a failed workers' revolt against Bolshevik rule, 3,000 to 5,000 people were executed in less than a week by the Cheka under orders from Sergey Kirov.

In the autumn of 1942, the region to the west of Astrakhan became one of the easternmost points in the Soviet Union reached by the invading German Wehrmacht, during Case Blue, the offensive which led to the Battle of Stalingrad.

Light armored forces of German Army Group A made brief scouting missions as close as 35 km to Astrakhan before withdrawing.

The oblast was retained as a national province of the independent Russian Federation in the 1991 administrative reshuffle after the dismemberment of the Soviet Union.

Starting nearly 400 years ago and continuing to the present day, Astrakhan has been Russia's main center of fish processing.

[29] Owing to shared Caspian borders, Astrakhan recently has been playing a significant role in the relations between Russia and Azerbaijan.

As the latter's government has been heavily investing into the wellbeing of the city, Astrakhan has recently begun to symbolize the friendship between both countries.

The summers are much hotter than found further west on similar latitude in Europe and worldwide for 46°N with the notable exception of the interior Pacific Northwest of the United States.

Astrakhan is linked by rail to the north (Volgograd and Moscow), the east (Atyrau and Kazakhstan) and the south (Makhachkala and Baku).