Travel and Tourism in Iran

The Other Great Destinations

Beyond the four major tourist cities, Iran contains a remarkable range of destinations that reward the traveler willing to move beyond the standard circuit.

Tabriz, capital of East Azerbaijan Province in the northwest, is one of Iran's oldest and most historically significant cities. Its bazaar, the Tabriz Historic Bazaar Complex, was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2010 and is by area the largest covered bazaar in the world, a labyrinthine complex of caravanserais, mosques, schools, and trading halls extending for many kilometers beneath brick vaulted roofs. Tabriz was the commercial center of the Silk Road trade between Central Asia and Europe for centuries, and the bazaar reflects this history in the extraordinary diversity of goods traded here and in the architectural complexity that grew from centuries of commercial accumulation. The city also has a special place in Iranian political memory as the center of the Constitutional Revolution of 1905 to 1911, and the names of Tabriz revolutionaries who died defending the constitution are revered in Iranian democratic history.

Mashhad, in the northeastern Khorasan region, is the holiest city in Iran and one of the holiest sites in the Shia Muslim world. The Imam Reza Shrine, the tomb of the eighth Shia Imam Ali ibn Musa al-Ridha, who died in Mashhad in 818 CE, has grown over centuries into the largest mosque complex in the world by area, a vast sacred city of golden domes, minarets, prayer halls, libraries, and charitable institutions that sprawls across more than three million square meters in the heart of the city. Approximately 30 to 50 million pilgrims visit the shrine every year, making Mashhad one of the busiest pilgrimage sites on earth. Non-Muslims are permitted to enter the outer precincts of the complex and to experience the extraordinary scale and intensity of Shia devotional life, though the innermost sanctum of the shrine is restricted to Muslims. Watching pilgrims weep and pray at the shrine is a powerful experience that conveys something essential about the depth of Shia religious culture in Iran.

Kashan, a city in Isfahan Province, is known for its exceptional traditional architecture, its role in the history of the Persian carpet, and its proximity to one of Iran's finest examples of the Persian garden tradition. The Fin Garden, inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site as part of the Persian Gardens, is the oldest existing Persian garden in Iran, with parts of it dating to the Safavid period, and is the site of the assassination of the reformist prime minister Amir Kabir in 1852, giving it a historical poignancy in addition to its botanical beauty. The traditional houses of Kashan, particularly the Tabatabai House and the Borujerdi House, are among the finest examples of nineteenth-century Persian domestic architecture, with their central courtyard gardens, elaborate plasterwork, and mirrored halls, and they give an intimate sense of the life of Kashan's wealthy merchant class that no museum can replicate.

The city of Qom, south of Tehran, is the theological heart of Shia Islam, home to the hawza, the network of Shia seminaries, that trains the religious scholars who staff the clerical hierarchy of the Islamic Republic. The Fatima al-Masumeh Shrine, dedicated to the sister of Imam Reza, is Qom's central monument and a major pilgrimage destination. Non-Muslims may visit the outer precincts of the shrine.

Hamadan, ancient Ecbatana, the summer capital of the Median kings and the Achaemenid Empire, sits in the western Zagros at over 1,800 meters elevation. The city claims to be among the oldest in the world and contains the tomb of Ibn Sina, the great medieval philosopher and physician Avicenna, whose contributions to medicine, philosophy, and science represent one of the highest achievements of Persian intellectual culture.

The island of Kish in the Persian Gulf is designated a free trade zone and functions as something of a resort destination, with beaches, water sports, and shopping in a setting that gives a very different sense of Iran than the central plateau cities. The ancient Greek trading settlement on the island and the ruins of a Portuguese fort speak to the island's long history as a waypoint in Persian Gulf trade.

Bam and its citadel in Kerman Province represent one of the most dramatically picturesque and most tragic of Iran's UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The Bam Citadel, Arg-e Bam, was the largest mud brick structure in the world, a medieval city of extraordinary completeness that gave visitors an unparalleled sense of traditional Iranian urban life. The earthquake of December 2003 destroyed most of the citadel and killed over 26,000 people in the surrounding city, one of the most devastating earthquakes in Iranian history. Reconstruction work has proceeded, and the site remains inscribed on the World Heritage List, but the loss of the original structure remains a painful chapter in the story of Iranian heritage.

Rasht, capital of Gilan Province on the Caspian coast, offers a completely different face of Iran: subtropical, humid, green beyond anything the plateau visitor might expect, with dense forests running up the hillsides and a cuisine distinct from the rest of Iran in its use of rice, fresh herbs, fish, and the ingredients of a wet, temperate climate. The Caspian coast region is where Tehranis escape in summer and where the contrast between the forested mountains dropping to the sea and the arid plateau just over the Alborz ridge creates one of the most dramatic geographical contrasts in any country.

The UNESCO World Heritage Sites: A Summary

Iran's 29 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, among the top ten globally, represent a remarkable survey of the country's civilizational depth. They include Persepolis, the Naqsh-e Jahan Square of Isfahan, the Golestan Palace in Tehran, Pasargadae, the Bisotun inscription in Kermanshah Province, the Armenian Monastic Ensembles of Iran, the Shushtar Historical Hydraulic System in Khuzestan, the Persian Garden, Meidan Emam in Isfahan, the Tabriz Historic Bazaar Complex, the Bam Citadel, the Hyrcanian Forests of the Caspian coast, the Historic City of Yazd, the Sassanid Archaeological Landscape of Fars Region, the Persian Caravanserai complex, Hegmataneh in Hamadan, the Trans-Iranian Railway, the Lut Desert, the Gonbad-e Qabus, a remarkable Seljuk tower mausoleum in the northeast, the Great Wall of Gorgan, an ancient defensive wall that preceded and exceeded Hadrian's Wall in scale, and others of equal fascination. The site of Hegmataneh, the ancient Median capital of Ecbatana near modern Hamadan, was inscribed in 2024. The Prehistoric Sites of the Khorramabad Valley in Lorestan Province, home to some of the oldest cave paintings and rock art in the Middle East, were added to the list in 2025, bringing Iran's total to 29 inscribed sites. Each of these sites alone justifies the journey to Iran; together they constitute one of the most extraordinary concentrations of human heritage anywhere on earth.