Mazandaran
مازندرانThe Caspian shore of rice fields and forest beneath the Alborz, crowned by Mount Damavand.
Mazandaran is a narrow green strip between the Caspian Sea and the Alborz, wet, wooded and densely farmed with rice and citrus. Its towns, Sari, Amol and Babol, are among the oldest on the coast.
Above them rises Damavand, at about 5,610 metres the highest peak in Iran and the highest volcano in Asia, snow-capped for most of the year.
In the Shahnameh
In the Shahnameh, Mazandaran is the land of the divs, the demons Rostam defeats on his Seven Trials, and it is in a cave on Damavand that Fereydun chains the tyrant Zahhak.
Cities and towns
Sariساری
The provincial capital
Amolآمل
An old city at the foot of Damavand
Babolبابل
A market town of the rice plain
Ramsarرامسر
A Caspian resort under forested hills
Landmarksبناها و نشانهها
Mount Damavand
دماوندThe highest peak in Iran, about 5,610 metres
Poets of Mazandaranشاعران
Nima Yushij
نیما یوشیجThe father of modern Persian poetry, who loosened the rules of line and rhyme that had held for a thousand years.
Stories from hereداستانها
The Caspian tiger
The tiger of Mazandaran vanished from Iran in the mid-twentieth century. It lives on in a name, a hero's cloak and a genetic surprise.
The Caspian horse
A small, fine-boned horse found pulling carts near the Caspian in the 1960s, and argued by some to echo the horses carved at Persepolis.
Sturgeon and caviar of the Caspian
Armoured fish of an ancient lineage, whose eggs made the Caspian famous and whose decline turned a luxury into a conservation emergency.
Zahhak and Kaveh the blacksmith
A king with serpents growing from his shoulders, and the blacksmith who raised his leather apron on a spear and brought him down.
Fereydun and his three sons
The king who freed Iran from Zahhak divided the world between his sons, and in doing so, Ferdowsi says, began the long feud between Iran and Turan.
Arash the archer
To end a war, the border of Iran would be drawn wherever one arrow fell. Arash climbed a mountain and put everything he had into the shot.