Yazd
یزدAn old desert city of windcatchers, qanats and Zoroastrian fire temples, where caravan routes crossed the central plateau.
Yazd grew where caravan routes crossed the central desert. Its mud-brick old town, a UNESCO World Heritage site since 2017, is built for the heat: windcatchers, badgir, pull cool air down into the houses, and qanats, underground channels, bring water from the mountains.
Yazd remains a centre of Iran's Zoroastrian community. Its fire temple keeps a flame said to have burned for many centuries, and the Towers of Silence stand on the hills outside the city.
Cities and towns
Yazdیزد
The old town of windcatchers
Meybodمیبد
Pottery, a caravanserai and an old ice house
Taftتفت
A town of gardens and Zoroastrian villages
Landmarksبناها و نشانهها
Dowlat Abad Garden
باغ دولتآبادHome to one of the tallest windcatchers in Iran
Yazd Atash Behram
آتشکده یزدThe fire temple of Yazd
Yazd through time
Iranian historyAfsharids, Zands and Qajarsافشاریان، زندیان و قاجاریان
A soldier-king who sacked Delhi, a regent who rebuilt Shiraz, and a dynasty that made Tehran the capital and lived through Iran's Constitutional Revolution.
- Dowlat Abad Garden laid out in Yazd
- Present Yazd fire temple building completed
- Inscribed by UNESCO as part of the Persian Garden
Stories from hereداستانها
The Asiatic cheetah
Once a hunting companion of kings, now the last of its line: the Asiatic cheetah survives in the wild only in Iran, and only a few dozen are thought to remain.
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.