Paytakaran and its namesake province were strategically significant due to their role in protecting the kingdom against invading peoples from north of the Caucasus.
Following the Christianization of Armenia in the early 4th century, the lord of Angeghtun is said to have imprisoned 438 pagan priests in Paytaaran.
It is sometimes identified with the city of Beylagan in modern-day Azerbaijan, on the left bank of the Aras, or with the nearby village of Tazakend.
The Armenian historian Ghevont Alishan placed Paytakaran near the village of Salian in Iran, where the ruins of an ancient city can be found.
Other historians place it near to the confluence of the Kura and Aras rivers or closer the shore of the Caspian Sea.