Roudbar

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Roodbar (also spelled "Roudbar" or "rudbar") is the highest city near the Caspian (viewed on Google Earth in Northern Iran/Southern Caspian). It is located in a mountainous area and therefore is surrounded by many hills and mountains such as "Dorfak". it is called Roodbar ("by the river" in Persian) because of the river named Sepid Rood (Sepid Roud) that passes by the town. Roodbar is also called "Roodbar Zeitoun (olive)" for the olive gardens in the area. Marlik bowl, a famous archeological artifact and one of the oldest gold bowls in the world from 1st millennium BC was found in Roodbar [1], [2]. Despite the olive gardens that may suggest presence of a Mediterranean climate, the winters are very cold in the area. The winds in the Sepid Rood valley (Manjil) are well known in the country.

Roodbar was near the epicenter of an earthquake of magnitude 7.3 Richter (MS=7.7, MW=7.3, mb=6.4) at 12:31am on June 21, 1990 local time that killed at least 6,000 and injured 10,000 city residents.^[1]