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Iran

5 city guides · Middle East

Cities in Iran (5)

Middle East
🇮🇷 Iran

Isfahan

Isfahan (اصفهان — Esfahan) is the third-largest city in Iran, with 2 million people on the high Iranian plateau (at 1,590m altitude) beside the Zayandeh River — a city that the Persians call 'Esfahan nesf-e jahān' (Isfahan is half the world), a saying coined in the Safavid era (1501–1736) when Isfahan was the capital of the Safavid Empire and considered the most beautiful city on earth. The Safavid Shah Abbas I (Abbas the Great, 1587–1629) rebuilt the city entirely around the Naqsh-e Jahan Square (Image of the World Square) — a 512m × 163m royal square (the second-largest public square in the world after Beijing's Tiananmen Square) surrounded by the Shah Mosque (Masjed-e Imam — the masterpiece of Safavid architecture, with a 52m dome covered in intricate Persian blue tilework), the Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque (a mosque without minarets, built for the royal harem, with an interior dome that shifts from cream to pink to orange depending on the angle of light and the time of day), the Ali Qapu Palace (the royal viewing pavilion above the square, with a Music Room whose plaster ceiling is carved into the shapes of vases and musical instruments to create acoustic effects), and the Isfahan Grand Bazaar (one of the world's oldest and most extensive covered bazaars, 5.5km of connected arcades). Best months: April–May and September–October (spring and autumn, 20–28°C).

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Middle East
🇮🇷 Iran

Mashhad

Mashhad (meaning "Place of Martyrdom" in Arabic) is Iran's second-largest city and the holiest city in the country — home of the Imam Reza Shrine Complex, the largest mosque complex in the world by area (600,000 m²) and one of the most important pilgrimage destinations in the Shia Muslim world, receiving 25–30 million pilgrims annually. Mashhad sits in the Razavi Khorasan province in northeastern Iran, at the foot of the Binalud Mountains near the Afghan and Turkmenistan borders — the frontier character of the city gives it a different energy from Tehran. The Goharshad Mosque within the shrine complex is one of the finest examples of Timurid Islamic architecture.

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🇮🇷 Iran

Shiraz

Shiraz is the cultural capital of Iran and the city most identified with Persian poetry, wine (historically — Shiraz wine was among the most celebrated in the medieval Islamic world before Prohibition was enforced), roses and nightingales. Shiraz (population 1.9 million, capital of Fars Province) was the capital of the Persian Empire under the Zand dynasty (1750-1794 — the only major Persian dynasty actually from the Shiraz region; the Zand rulers built most of the historic city centre that visitors see today: the Arg of Karim Khan, the Nasir al-Mulk Mosque, the Vakil Bazaar and Bath) and the home of the two greatest poets in the Persian literary canon: Hafez (Khwāja Shams-ud-Dīn Muḥammad Ḥāfeẓ-e Shīrāzī, c.1315-1390 — the most-read poet in the Persian-speaking world, whose Divan (collected poems) is the most-consulted book in Iranian households after the Quran; the ghazal form Hafez perfected — a 7-14 couplet love poem with a refrain — is the basis of all subsequent Persian lyric poetry) and Sa'di (Abu-Muhammad Muslih al-Din bin Abdallah Shirazi, c.1210-1291 — the great poet of wisdom whose Gulistan (Rose Garden) and Bustan (Orchard) are the most widely taught Persian texts in Iranian schools; the UN General Assembly building in New York has an inscription from Sa'di's Gulistan on the entrance wall — "All human beings are members of one frame, since all, at first, from the same essence came"). Shiraz is the closest major city to Persepolis (60 km northeast — the Achaemenid Persian imperial capital founded by Darius the Great in 518 BC, burned by Alexander the Great in 330 BC, the most significant archaeological site in Iran and one of the finest ancient sites in the world).

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Tabriz

Tabriz is the capital of East Azerbaijan Province and the sixth-largest city in Iran (population 1.7 million), in the northwest corner of the Iranian plateau at 1,350 m altitude near the Eynali Mountain and the Quri River — one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, with archaeological evidence of habitation from at least 4000 BCE, and the former capital of the Ilkhanate Mongol Empire (1260-1335) and the Safavid Persian Empire (1501-1555) under Shah Ismail I. The city's defining landmark is the Tabriz Historic Bazaar Complex (Bazaar-e Tabriz — UNESCO World Heritage 2010), the largest covered bazaar complex in the world with 5,500 shops, 35 caravanserais, 25 mosque complexes, 22 bathhouses and 11 schools built in a contiguous interconnected system of vaulted brick corridors covering 27 hectares — the commercial infrastructure of the Silk Road era that physically connected Tabriz to Samarkand, Constantinople, Cairo and Genoa. The Tabriz carpet tradition is one of the finest in the world — the Tabriz pattern (the medallion-and-corner design with the fine curvilinear floral programme) is the template for formal Persian carpet design worldwide; the bazaar carpet section employs the most knowledgeable carpet dealers in Iran. Tabriz was the birthplace of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution (Mashroute — the 1905-1911 revolution that established Iran's first parliament (Majles); the Tabriz constitutionalists (the anjoman revolutionaries) held the city for 11 months against the Qajar royalist army in 1908-1909, a siege defended by the militia commander Sattar Khan and Bagher Khan — the "Father of the Nation" and the "Master of the Nation" — who became the defining heroes of the Iranian constitutional movement). The city is ethnically Azerbaijani (Turkic-speaking) — the largest Azerbaijani city in the world by population outside the Republic of Azerbaijan — with a distinct cultural identity that combines Iranian civic culture with Azerbaijani language and tradition.

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🇮🇷 Iran

Tehran

Tehran is one of the most misunderstood capitals in the world — a vast, chaotic, fascinating metropolis of 16 million people at the foot of the Alborz Mountains (visible from most of the city, snow-capped for most of the year). The city the world sees in news images bears little resemblance to the Tehran of extraordinary museums (the National Museum, the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, the Golestan Palace UNESCO site), outstanding bazaar culture, the finest Persian food in the world, and a young, well-educated population that is among the most hospitality-focused people on earth. The Milad Tower, the ski slopes of Tochal (30 min from the city centre), and the night life of Tajrish make Tehran an extraordinary experience.

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