The primary sources for the study of the Khanate are roughly divided into three groups: chronicles, documentary material, and travel accounts.

[3] The first Persian chronicle about the Talysh Khanate is Javāher Nāmeh-ye Lankarān (1869) (i.e., The Jewel Book of Lankaran[5]), written by Saeid-Ali ibn Kazem Beg Borādigāhi (1800–1872).

[3] A nonspecific but relevant chronicle which written in Persian is Gulistan-i Iram (1845) (i.e., The Heavenly Rose-Garden) from Abbas-Qoli Aqa Bakikhanov (1794–1847).

[3] Travelogues and reports by merchants, agents, and informers, are another type of primary source that is potentially useful for the study of the Talysh Khanate.

Among this type of source, one may mention accounts written by two Poles in Russian service: Jan Potocki (1761–1815), and Aleksander Chodźko (1804–1891).

Another account relating to Talysh, is a report made by Camille Alphonse Trézel (1780–1860), a French officer who served under Claude-Matthieu Gardane (1766–1818), Napoleon's envoy to the Persian court.

It is a narrow strip of land extending from Rudbar in the south to Astara in Iranian territory and on to the north of Lankaran District, located in the Republic of Azerbaijan.

The northern half of Talysh is one of the seventeen provinces that were cut from Iranian territory as a result of the treaties of Gulistan (1813) and Turkmenchay (1828).

In 1794–5 the Persian Shah Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar called on the various khanates of the South Caucasus to form an alliance against the Russian Empire and mounted a military expedition against those who refused to join him.

After a brief siege led by Pyotr Kotlyarevsky on January 1, 1813, 2,000 Russian troops managed to decisively take the citadel of Lenkaran from the Persian army.

Only Mir Hassan Khan of Talesh was allowed autonomy, Ermolov understanding him and his family to be implacably hostile to Iran.

[11] Persian Talish was also separated from the khanate, with Fath 'Ali Shah wanting to limit the power of Mir Mostafa Khan.

He divided the area into 5 pieces (Karganrud, Asalem, Talesh-Dulab, Shandarmin, Masal) and created what came to be known as the Khamsa of Talesh (Persian: خمسهٔ طوالش, romanized: Khamsa-yī Ṭavālesh).

A 1938 production of his The Adventures of the Vizier of the Lankaran's Khan (1851), starred the future president of Republic of Azerbaijan, Heydar Aliyev, then just a teenager.