Qazvin

Qazvin
قزوین
Shazdeh Hosein shrine
Qazvin
Coordinates:
Country  Iran
Province Qazvin
County Qazvin
Bakhsh Central
Elevation 1,800 m (5,906 ft)
Population (2006)
 • Total 349,821
Time zone IRST (UTC+3:30)
 • Summer (DST) IDST (UTC+4:30)
Area code(s) 0281
Website http://www.qazvin.ir

Qazvin (English pronunciation: /kæzˈviːn/, Persian: قزوین, IPA: [ɢæzˈviːn], also Romanized as Qazvīn, Kazvin, Qazwin, Ghazvin is the largest city and capital of the Province of Qazvin in Iran. At the 2006 census, its population was 349,821, in 96,420 families.[1]

Located some 165 km northwest of Tehran, in the Qazvin Province, it is at an altitude of about 1800 meters above sea level. The climate is cold but dry, due to its position south of the rugged Alborz range.

Contents

History

The city was a former capital of the Persian Empire.[2] It is a provincial capital today that has been an important cultural center throughout history.

Archeological findings in the Qazvin plain reveal urban agricultural settlements for at least nine millennia. Qazvin geographically connects Tehran, Isfahan, and the Persian Gulf to the Caspian seacoast and Asia Minor, hence its strategic location throughout the ages.

The city today known as Qazvin is thought to have been founded by Shapur II, King of Persia in 250 CE, under the name Shad Shahpur, when he built a fortification there to control regional tensions.

Qazvin has sometimes been of central importance at important moments of Iranian history. Captured by invading Arabs (644 AD) and destroyed by Genghis Khan (13th century), Shah Tahmasp (1524–1576) made, for a time, Qazvin the capital of the Safavid empire (founded around 1510 AD).[2]

Qazvin is the place from which the famous coup d’état that led to the rise of the first Pahlavi dynasty was launched in 1921.

People

The majority of the people of the province and the city of Qazvin are Persians[3] and the main language of the people of Qazvin is Persian languages with the Qazvini accent.[4] Other languages include Tati (in Takestan), Kurdish, Azeri, Luri, Romani.[4]

Main sights

Qazvin contains several archeological excavations. And in the middle of the city lie the ruins of Meimoon Ghal'eh, one of several Sassanid edifices in the area.

Qazvin contains few buildings from the Safavid era, dating to the period in which it was capital of Persia. Perhaps the most famous of the surviving edifices is the Chehelsotoon (Kolah Farangi) mansion, today a museum in central Qazvin.

After Islam, the popularity of mystics (tasawwuf), as well as the prominence of tradition (Hadith), religious jurisprudence (fiqh), and philosophy in Qazvin, led to the emergence of many mosques and religious schools. They include:

Qazvin contains three buildings built by Russians in the late 19th/early 20th century. Among these is the current Mayor's office (former Ballet Hall), a water reservoir, and the Cantor church, where a Russian pilot is buried.

Other attractions near Qazvin are the tombs of two Saljuki era princes, Aboo Saeed Bijar, son of Sad, and Aboo Mansoor Iltai, son of Takin — located in two separate towers known as the Kharaghan twin towers. Constructed in 1067 CE, these were the first monuments in Islamic architecture to include a non-conic two-layered dome.

Both towers were severely damaged by a devastating earthquake in March 2003.

Notable people

Aside from Shahzadeh Hossein, a Shiite saint, to whom a handsome shrine has been built, there have been an abundance of scientists and mystics who lived in Qazvin, or came from Qazvin, whose tombs are scattered throughout the cities and villages of the province. Some of these are:

Economy

Qazvin today is a center of textile trade, including cotton, silk and velvet, in addition to leather. It is on the railroad line and the highway between Tehran and Tabriz. Qazvin has one of the largest power plants feeding electricity into Iran's national power grid, the Shahid Raja'i facility, which provides 7% of Iran's electrical power.

Colleges and universities

Qazvin has four institutes of higher education:

Schools

See also

External links

References

  1. ^ "Census of the Islamic Republic of Iran, 1385 (2006)" (Excel). Islamic Republic of Iran. http://www.amar.org.ir/DesktopModules/FTPManager/upload/upload2360/newjkh/newjkh/26.xls. 
  2. ^ a b Iran (5th ed., 2008), by Andrew Burke and Mark Elliott, p. 28, Lonely Planet Publications, ISBN 9781741042931
  3. ^ Mohammad Jalal Abbasi-Shavazi, Peter McDonald, Meimanat Hosseini-Chavoshi, "The Fertility Transition in Iran: Revolution and Reproduction", Springer, 2009. pp 100-101: "The first category is 'Central' where the majority of people are Persian speaking ethnic Fars (provinces of Fars, Hamedan, Isfahan, Markazi, Qazvin, Qom, Semnan, Yazd and Tehran..."
  4. ^ a b The official Media from Qazvin- February 10-2010 [1].
  5. ^ http://nooraghayee.com/en/
  6. ^ http://www.iranian.com/Kasraie/2005/October/Qazvin/4.html
  7. ^ http://payvand.com/news/05/sep/1056.html