Bam

Bam grew where qanats — underground channels cut back into the alluvial fan of the mountains — brought enough water to the desert edge to support date palms, citrus and a walled town. Settlement here is very old, and the citadel's origins are usually placed in the Achaemenid or Parthian period, with most of what stands today built and rebuilt from the Safavid era onwards. The town sat on the routes between the Persian Gulf, Kerman and the Indian frontier, and it grew rich on trade, above all on silk and cotton cloth.

Arg-e Bam was not a castle but a fortified town of about eighteen hectares, holding a residential quarter, a bazaar street, a congregational mosque, stables and army barracks, with the governor's quarters on a rocky hill behind a double fortification wall. An outer wall some 1,815 metres long, carrying thirty-eight watchtowers and four gates, and a moat ran around the whole. It was lived in until the 19th century, after which the population moved out to the modern town on the plain; a garrison stayed inside the walls until 1932, and the rest was left to the weather.

At 5.26 in the morning on 26 December 2003 an earthquake struck directly beneath the town. More than 26,000 people were killed, most of the modern town collapsed, and the citadel, built of unfired mud brick, largely fell. Relief came from many countries, and the rebuilding that followed was substantial: a new town of low-rise, earthquake-resistant buildings, and a long restoration of the citadel using traditional materials, carried out with international help. UNESCO inscribed Bam and its Cultural Landscape as a World Heritage Site soon afterwards.

Bam's culture is that of an oasis: shaped by water, dates and the long distances of the Kerman plain. The qanat system that sustains the gardens has needed cooperative management for centuries, and ownership of water shares, like ownership of palms, runs through families. Bam and Baravat keep the rhythm of rural Kerman province, with neighbourly obligation, large extended families and an emphatic hospitality in which refusing tea or dates is almost impossible.

The 2003 earthquake is the central fact of local memory. Few families were untouched, and the reconstruction — rapid, foreign-assisted and much debated — reshaped the town physically and socially. The restoration of the citadel became a matter of national feeling as well as heritage policy, with mud brick made and laid in the old way, and it turned the site into a symbol of recovery rather than only of loss.

Religious life follows the Shia calendar of the province, with Muharram processions and Ramadan evenings the main public occasions of the year, alongside Nowruz in spring, when families picnic in the palm gardens. Traditional crafts of the district include palm-frond weaving and, in the wider province, pateh embroidery and carpet weaving. Kerman Persian is spoken with a distinct southern accent, and Baluch families from further east are part of the town's population.

About 127,000 people lived in Bam at the 2016 census, with more in Baravat and the surrounding rural districts. Agriculture is the economy: dates above all, especially the soft dark Mazafati variety for which the district is known nationally, together with citrus and other irrigated crops. Packing, processing and transport follow the harvest, and the seasonal work draws labour from outside the district.

The town people live in is almost entirely post-2003. Low-rise housing on wide streets replaced the dense older quarters, with new schools, clinics and public buildings, and an emphasis on earthquake resistance. A special economic zone was established outside the town to bring industry and assembly work, with mixed results, and many younger people still leave for Kerman or further afield.

Water is the permanent worry. Qanats and wells are drawn on harder than the aquifer can bear, drought has cut yields, and the palm gardens depend on a supply that is not secure. The day follows the sun: early starts, a long pause through the afternoon in summer, and streets that refill in the evening. Bam's position on the road towards the Pakistani border also makes smuggling and policing a constant feature of provincial life. Like the rest of the country, the town has lived through years of sanctions, high inflation and, since February 2026, war.

Dates are the foundation of everything. Bam's Mazafati dates are dark, soft and almost syrupy, eaten fresh in season and kept chilled the rest of the year, and they turn up with tea, in pastries, pressed into bread and cooked into sweets. The regional pastry is kolompeh, a pie-like case filled with minced dates and cardamom and often finished with pistachio or sesame, baked in Kerman and bought by the box.

Everyday cooking is that of southern Kerman: lamb or chicken kebab grilled over charcoal and served with saffron rice, grilled tomato and flatbread; abgusht, the lamb, chickpea and potato stew whose broth is soaked up with bread before the solids are pounded to a paste; and thick ash soups of pulses, noodles and herbs. Bread comes hot from the neighbourhood oven several times a day.

Drinking means tea, poured black and strong and taken with a date held in the mouth, and in the heat the cold drinks of the plateau: doogh, salted yoghurt thinned with water and mint, and sharbats of rosewater, sour cherry or sweet basil seeds. Citrus from the oasis gardens makes fresh juice in winter, and pistachios and walnuts from further north are sold alongside the dates. Alcohol is illegal.