Isfahan

'Isfahan is half the world,' the Persian proverb declares—Nesf-e Jahan—and under Shah Abbas I, who made it his capital in 1598, the claim was nearly literal. The Safavid Empire controlled trade routes from the Caspian to the Persian Gulf, and Isfahan's Naqsh-e Jahan Square—one of the largest public squares on Earth at 89,600 square meters, more than seven times the size of St. Peter's Square—was designed as a statement of imperial power. The Shah Mosque, the Ali Qapu Palace, and the Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque frame the square in a composition that UNESCO describes as one of the masterpieces of Islamic architecture.

Isfahan exists because the Zayandeh-Rud River flows from the Zagros Mountains across the central Iranian plateau, creating a fertile oasis in an otherwise arid landscape. The city has been inhabited since at least the Elamite period (third millennium BCE) and has served as capital or co-capital to multiple Persian dynasties. The Seljuk Turks made it their capital in the eleventh century; the Safavids transformed it in the sixteenth. Shah Abbas I's urban plan connected the old city to the new royal quarter through a covered bazaar stretching over two kilometers—infrastructure designed to channel trade through the capital.

The Safavid golden age ended with the Afghan invasion of 1722, during which a six-month siege reduced the population from 500,000 to approximately 50,000 through starvation and massacre. Isfahan never fully recovered its political primacy—the capital moved to Shiraz, then Tehran. But the architectural legacy survived: the mosques, bridges (including the Si-o-se-pol with its 33 arches), and bazaars remained intact through subsequent centuries, making Isfahan Iran's greatest tourist attraction and a living museum of Persian urban design.

Isfahan's population of approximately 2.2 million makes it Iran's third-largest city. The economy combines traditional crafts (Isfahan's carpet-weaving and metalwork remain globally recognized), heavy industry (Isfahan's steel plant is Iran's largest), and military production. The Natanz nuclear facility, located 150 kilometers north, makes the region geopolitically sensitive. The Zayandeh-Rud—the river that created the city—now runs dry for months at a time due to upstream dam construction and agricultural extraction, a water crisis that mirrors Isfahan's historical pattern: the same resource that built the city is being consumed by the demand it created.