According to the Armenian geography, Media contained eleven districts;
Ptolemy makes the number eight; but the classical geographers in
general are contented with the twofold division already indicated,
and recognized at the constituent parts of Media only Atropatene (now
Azerbijan) and Media Magna, a tract which nearly corresponds with the
two provinces of Irak Ajemj and Ardelan. Of the minor subdivisions there
are but two or three which seem to deserve any special notice. One of
these is Ehagiana, or the tract skirting the Elburz Mountains from the
vicinity of the Kizil-Uzen (or Sefid-Eud) to the Caspian Gates, a long
and narrow slip, fairly productive, but excessively hot in summer, which
took its name from the important city of Rhages. Another is Nissea, a
name which the Medes seem to have carried with them from their early
eastern abodes, and to have applied to some high upland plains west
of the main chain of Zagros, which were peculiarly favorable to the
breeding of horses. As Alexander visited these pastures on his way from
Susa to Ecbatana, they must necessarily have lain to the south of the
latter city. Most probably they are to be identified with the modern
plains of Kbawah and Alishtar, between Behistun and Khorramabad, which
are even now considered to afford the best summer pasturage in Persia.

It is uncertain whether any of these divisions were known in the time of
the great Median Empire. They are not constituted in any case by marked
natural lines or features. On the whole it is perhaps most probable
that the main division--that into Media Magna and Media Atropatene--was
ancient, Astro-patene being the old home of the Medes, and Media Magna a
later conquest; but the early political geography of the country is too
obscure to justify us in laying down even this as certain. The minor
political divisions are still less distinguishable in the darkness of
those ancient times.