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KERMAN i. GEOGRAPHY Physical geography. Kerman province is situated in southeast Iran, to the southwest of the Kavir-e Lut (see DESERT). Covering an area of 182,000 km2 (70,000 square miles), Kerman is the largest province in Persia, constituting 11 percent of its area. The province lies between latitudes 26°29′ and 31°58′…

KERMAN ii. HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY THE NAME OF KERMAN In the early Achaemenid period, the name of Kerman (for most recent discussion, see Schmitt, 1996; idem, 2003) is first found in a trilingual inscription of Darius I (r. 522-486 BCE; see DARIUS iii)—the “palace foundation charter” represented by inscriptions DSf (Old…

KERMAN iii. POPULATION This article is divided into three sections: (1) Population of Kerman province; (2) Population of Kerman sub-province; and (3) Population of the city of Kerman. POPULATION OF KERMAN PROVINCE Boundaries. The boundaries of Kerman province have changed since the first national census of population in 1956. The…

KERMAN ix. HISTORY IN THE QAJAR PERIOD Kerman, despite its geographical position on the periphery of Qajar Iran (1795-1925), was at the center of numerous significant developments in this important transitional period in Iran’s history. Politically, Kerman was never well-integrated into the Qajar empire. Locally-rooted elite households dominated the provincial…

KERMAN v. HISTORY FROM THE ISLAMIC CONQUEST TO THE COMING OF THE MONGOLS The Armenian geography written in the second half of the 8th century and traditionally attributed to Moses of Khoren (see MOVSĒS XORENAC‘I) places Kerman in the southern quarter of the Sasanian empire (Markwart, pp. 30-31). Its chief town…

KERMAN vii. HISTORY IN THE SAFAVID PERIOD For the history of the town and region of Kerman during the Safavid period we have an unusual array of source material. Since Kerman was situated away from the route that connected Bandar ʿAbbās with Isfahan via Shiraz, few European travelers visited the…

KERMAN viii. HISTORY IN THE AFSHARID AND ZAND PERIOD Between the fall of the Safavids and the rise of the Qajar dynasty (ca. 1722-94), Kerman maintained a measure of stability and security under local rulers despite the rise and fall of dynastic states across the Iranian plateau. The principal sources…

KERMAN xiv. Jewish Community of Kerman City References to the Sasanian-period town of Kerman are sparse (see KERMAN ii. HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY). But some presence of Jewish and Nestorian Christian communities as an economic force there, as well as at Hormuz (the old port of Kerman province), seems likely, given the…

KERMAN xv. CARPET INDUSTRY Kerman has been the home of a thriving carpet weaving industry since the late 19th century. Kerman’s hand-woven, knotted pile carpets are widely regarded by art historians and collectors as among the finest in the world for the quality of their materials and workmanship, their distinct…

KERMAN xvi. LANGUAGES The province of Kerman is characterized by two indigenous, “Southwest” Iranian languages, Persian in the mountainous north and Garmsiri in the lowland south (Figure 1), supplemented by the Median-type dialects spoken by the Zoroastrian and Jewish residents of the city of Kerman, and possibly by Turkish residues…

KERMANSHAH (Kermānšāh), a province in western Iran; also the name of its principal city and capital. i. Geography. ii. Population. See Supplement. iii. Archeology. See BISOTUN ii; GODIN TEPE; KANGAVAR. iv. History to 1953. v. History since 1953. See Supplement. vi. Tribes. See KURDISH TRIBES; BĀJALĀN; GURĀN; KALHOR; and ZANGANA….

KERMANSHAH i. GEOGRAPHY Physical geography. Kermanshah province, situated in western Iran, spreads over an area of 25,000 km2 (9,560 square miles), or 1.5 percent of the total area of the country (Figure 1). It lies between 45.5° and 48° E longitude and 33.7° and 35.3° N latitude (the parallels that…

KERMANSHAH iv. HISTORY TO 1953 The town and province of Kermanshah (or Kermānšāhān) are located on the strategic travel route, later known as the “Khorasan Highway,” linking Mesopotamia to the Iranian plateau. This route was militarily and commercially important even in antiquity, as for example in the lapis lazuli and…

KERMANSHAH vii. LANGUAGES AND DIALECTS Kermanshah province (henceforth Kermanshahan, for brevity and distinctness from Kermanshah, the city) is linguistically characterized by a triad of Kurdish, Gurāni, and Persian within a multifaceted, areal-tribal-social setting. These are supplemented by Neo-Aramaic, which, until recently, was spoken by Jewish residents in scattered pockets of the area,…

KERMANSHAH viii. THE JEWISH COMMUNITY Kermanshah was located not far from the Jewish Academies of Babylonia. The Geonic historian Nathan Ha-Bavli reports that the late 9th-early 10th century exilarch Mar ʿUqba was banished from 909 to 916 to a locality, not far from Baghdad, called Kermanshah (Neubauer, II, pp. 77-88; Levi,…