The Ultimate Travel Guide to Iran: History & Attractions

Persia's great cities of Shiraz, Isfahan and Yazd contain some of the most magnificent Islamic architecture and ancient history on earth.

A Glimpse into History

Iran — ancient Persia — is one of the world's oldest civilisations, with a continuous cultural tradition stretching back 7,000 years that produced empires, religions, poetry, and art of global significance. The Elamite civilisation flourished in southwestern Iran from 3200 BC, while the Median Empire (678–550 BC) was the first of the Iranian empires. Cyrus the Great founded the Achaemenid Persian Empire in 550 BC — the largest empire the world had yet seen, stretching from Greece to India — and his Cyrus Cylinder is considered the world's first declaration of human rights. Persepolis, the ceremonial capital built by Darius I, was burned by Alexander the Great in 330 BC in one of antiquity's most symbolic acts of destruction. The Parthian and Sassanid empires maintained Persian culture through Roman competition until the Arab conquest in 651 AD brought Islam to Iran, though Iranians preserved their language (Persian/Farsi) and much of their cultural identity even as they converted. The Mongol invasions of the 13th century devastated the population but paradoxically led to a cultural flowering under the Ilkhanid dynasty. The Safavid Shah Abbas I made Isfahan his capital in 1598 and built a city whose architecture — the Imam Mosque, the Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque, the Ali Qapu Palace on the vast Naqsh-e Jahan Square — rivals anything in the Islamic world. The 20th century brought the Constitutional Revolution (1906), British and Soviet occupation, the CIA-backed coup against Mossadegh (1953), the 1979 Islamic Revolution under Ayatollah Khomeini, and the brutal Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988). Today Iran — despite international sanctions and political tension — offers travellers some of the world's most extraordinary historical sites and one of the warmest traditional hospitalities in the Middle East.

Top Attractions in Iran

Persepolis

The ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, built by Darius I from 515 BC, is the greatest archaeological site in the Middle East — its massive stone terrace, the Apadana audience hall, the Gate of All Nations, and the spectacular bas-relief processional friezes showing tribute-bearers from every corner of the empire rank among the finest achievements of ancient monumental architecture. Alexander the Great burned it in 330 BC in a night of drunken revenge, but even the ruins are awe-inspiring.

Isfahan's Naqsh-e Jahan Square

Shah Abbas I's Naqsh-e Jahan (Image of the World) Square in Isfahan — the second largest public square on earth after Tiananmen — is flanked by four of the most beautiful buildings in Islamic architecture: the Imam Mosque with its 52-metre portal and perfect blue-tiled dome, the intimate Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque (its dome a masterpiece of polychrome tilework), the Ali Qapu Palace with its music room, and the bazaar gateway. A UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1979.

Shiraz & Hafez Tomb

Shiraz — the City of Poets, Wine, and Roses — is the cultural capital of Iran, birthplace of the great medieval poets Hafez and Saadi whose tombs (and the gardens surrounding them) are places of national pilgrimage and lyrical beauty. The Nasir ol-Molk Mosque (the 'Pink Mosque') — its interior transformed at dawn into a kaleidoscope of coloured light through stained-glass windows — is one of the most photographed spaces in the Islamic world.

Yazd Ancient City

Yazd — a UNESCO-listed city continuously inhabited for 7,000 years and one of the oldest cities on earth — is a masterpiece of desert architecture, its mud-brick labyrinth of windcatchers (badgirs), traditional houses, and Zoroastrian Towers of Silence adapted over millennia to survive in one of Iran's most arid environments. The Jameh Mosque, the Amir Chakhmaq complex, and the Zoroastrian fire that has burned continuously since 470 AD make Yazd extraordinary.

Kashan & Persian Gardens

Kashan's Fin Garden — one of the nine UNESCO-listed Persian Gardens, the oldest surviving Persian garden (laid out in the 16th century by Shah Abbas I) — is a masterpiece of the chahar-bagh (four-garden) design that influenced garden design from the Mughal Empire to the Alhambra. Kashan's Abbasi House and Borujerdi House are the finest examples of Qajar-era merchant architecture, with their extraordinary stucco, mirror work, and painted ceilings.