Kerman
کرمانA vast province of desert, mountains and gardens, from the citadel of Bam to the pistachio orchards of Rafsanjan.
Kerman lies on old routes between the plateau, the Gulf and India. Its capital has a covered bazaar and the Ganjali Khan complex of the Safavid era, with its bathhouse, caravanserai and square.
The mud-brick citadel of Bam, the Arg-e Bam, was among the largest adobe buildings in the world until an earthquake in 2003 destroyed much of it; it has been under restoration since. To the east lies the Lut desert, one of the hottest places on Earth.
Cities and towns
Kermanکرمان
The provincial capital and its Safavid bazaar
Bamبم
The oasis city of the great citadel
Rafsanjanرفسنجان
The centre of Iran's pistachio country
Mahanماهان
The Shazdeh Garden and the shrine of Shah Nematollah Vali
Landmarksبناها و نشانهها
Arg-e Bam
ارگ بمThe great mud-brick citadel, under restoration since 2003
The Lut desert
دشت لوتDunes and wind-carved ridges, the kaluts, on the edge of the Lut
Shazdeh Garden
باغ شازدهA terraced Qajar garden in the desert at Mahan
Kerman through time
Iranian historyThe Pahlavi century and afterدوران پهلوی و پس از آن
Two Pahlavi shahs built railways, universities and a centralised state, while poets, novelists and film-makers created a new Persian culture. The era ended with the revolution of 1979.
- Earthquake devastates Bam and its citadel
- Bam inscribed by UNESCO, also as in danger
- Inscribed by UNESCO as part of the Persian Garden
- Bam removed from UNESCO's danger list
- Lut desert inscribed by UNESCO
Poets of Kermanشاعران
Tahereh Saffarzadeh
طاهره صفارزادهA poet who went from the international avant-garde of the 1960s to a poetry of faith, and translated the Qur'an into English and Persian.
Stories from hereداستانها
Ahura Mazda and Ahriman
The Wise Lord and the Hostile Spirit: the oldest Iranian account of a world in which every person takes a side, and the moral heart of a faith still practised today.
Kayumars and the first kings
In Ferdowsi's Shahnameh, history begins on a mountainside with a king in a leopard skin, and the gifts of civilisation are won one by one: fire, iron, tamed animals, writing.
The garden carpet
Water channels, fish, cypresses and flowering trees: a garden carpet maps the Persian *chahar bagh* onto wool, seen from above and from the side at once.
The city workshops
City carpets are woven to a drawn design, in workshops, by many hands. Each city has its own handwriting.