Abstract The Zagros Basin is broadly defined as the palaeodepositional wedge of sediments along the present belt of the Zagros Mountains. A series of ten regional isopach maps trace the development of a portion of this basin from Permian to Recent. From the Permian to the middle Cretaceous the area occupied a position along the stable northeastern Atlantic-type shelf margin of the Afro-Arabian continent, bounded by a rift zone that evolved into a southern Tethys ocean. Late Cretaceous to Recent subsidence patterns are influenced by plate margin tectonics, obduction, and eventual continental collision along the Zagros Suture as this ocean closed. The late Alpine Zagros folding and faulting took place from the Miocene onwards.