The Iron Age Sarmatians are an Iranian people in Classical Antiquity, flourishing from about the 5th century BCE to the 4th century CE.

Their territory is known as Sarmatia to Greco-Roman ethnographers, corresponding to the western part of greater Scythia (modern Southern Russia, Ukraine, and the eastern Balkans).

At their greatest reported extent, around 100 BC, these tribes range from the Vistula River to the mouth of the Danube and eastward to the Volga, bordering the shores of the Black and Caspian seas as well as the Caucasus to the south.

The Sarmatians decline in the 4th century with the incursions connected to the Migration period (Huns, Goths).

The descendants of the Sarmatians become known as the Alans during the Early Middle Ages, and ultimately give rise to the modern Ossetic ethnic group.