[2] Eleven major earthquakes have rocked Shamakhi but through multiple reconstructions, it maintained its role as the economic and administrative capital of Shirvan and one of the key towns on the Silk Road.

Shamakhi was in antiquity part of successive Persian empires and was first mentioned as Kamachia by the ancient Greco-Roman Egyptian geographer Claudius Ptolemaeus in the 1st to 2nd century AD.

[3] The Catholic friar, missionary and explorer William of Rubruck passed through it on his return journey from the Mongol Great Khan's court.

[9] Adam Olearius, who visited Shamakhi in 1637, wrote: "Its inhabitants are in part Armenians and Georgians, who have their particular language; they would not understand each other if they did not use Turkish, which is common to all and very familiar, not only in Shirvan, but also everywhere in Persia".

In 1721, the Lezgins of the Safavid provinces of Shirvan and Dagestan, aided by the (rest of the) Sunni inhabitants of the area, sacked the city.

[14][15] The Russian forces first entered Shirvan in 1723, as they invaded the Safavid Iranian territories in the North Caucasus and Transcaucasia during the Russo-Persian War (1722–1723), using the attack on their subjects in Shamakhi shortly before by the rebellious Lezgins as one of the pretexts.

In 1742 Shamakhi was taken and destroyed by Nader Shah of Persia reincorporating it back to Iran, and, who, to punish the inhabitants for their Sunnite creed, built a new town under the same name about 26 kilometres (16 mi) to the west, at the foot of the main chain of the Caucasus Mountains.

The new Shamakhi was at different times a residence of the Shirvan Khanate, ruled by semi-independent khans, but it was finally abandoned, and the old town rebuilt.

The British Penny Cyclopaedia stated in 1833 that "The bulk of the population of Shirvan consists of the Tahtar, or, to speak more correctly, Turkish race, with some admixture of Arabs and Persians.

Silk production continued to be the main output, with 130 silk-winding establishments, owned mostly by Armenians, although the industry had considerably declined since 1864.

[22] Other artistic products include copper craft, pottery, tailoring, jewellery, woodworking, sculpture, and blacksmithery (blacksmiths were very popular in Alsahab).

[3] The city is located in the most seismic area of the Caucasus and was hit by powerful earthquakes in 1191 and 1859, which was so destructive that the capital of Shirvan was transferred to Baku twice.

Shamakhi is located in the central part of Shirvan, at an altitude of about 749 m (2,457 ft) above sea level, in a favorable geographical position.

The city is surrounded by Binasli, Gushhan from the north, Pirdiraki, and Maiden Tower-Georgia from north-west and Meysari Mountains from the west.

There are many springs that provide urban population and people of surrounding villages with drinking water because of located at the slopes of the Caucasus Mountains.

[34][35] One can trace the music scene in Shamakhi back to ancient times and to the villages of Baku, generally revered as the fountainhead of mugham in Azerbaijan.

[36] Shamakhi Humanitarian College Shamakhi is twinned with the following cities: The city's notable residents include: philosopher Seyid Yahya Bakuvi, poets Seyid Azim Shirvani, Khaqani and Mirza Alakbar Sabir, mugham singers Alim Qasimov, Yaver Kelenterli and Farghana Qasimova, actors Aghasadyg Garaybeyli and Abbas Mirza Sharifzadeh, architect Gasim bey Hajibababeyov, Armenian playwright and novelist Alexander Shirvanzade, Armenian actor Hovhannes Abelian and others.