Kerman

Kerman is traditionally said to have been founded in the third century by Ardashir I, the first Sasanian king, and for much of its history it was known as a frontier city facing the deserts and the routes to India. Its life depended on qanats, the underground channels that brought water down from the mountains, and on the caravan trade that crossed the plateau between the Persian Gulf and Khorasan.

The city changed hands often. Arab armies took it in the seventh century; the Seljuks made it the seat of a long-lasting local dynasty, from which the Malek Mosque survives; and the Mongols and then Timur passed through. Under the Safavids it recovered strongly, and around 1600 the governor Ganjali Khan built the square, caravanserai, mint, school and bathhouse that still form the finest group of buildings in the city. Kerman's carpets and shawls were exported as far as Europe in this period, and the province's woven goods became its name abroad.

Prosperity ended violently. In 1794 Agha Mohammad Khan, founder of the Qajar dynasty, besieged Kerman because it had sheltered his rival Lotf Ali Khan Zand, and on taking the city he exacted a punishment remembered as one of the cruellest in Iranian history. The old city was largely abandoned and a new one grew alongside it. The 20th century brought roads, the railway from Tehran, a university and industry, above all the vast copper mine at Sarcheshmeh to the south-west and the pistachio orchards around Rafsanjan, and the modern city has spread out far beyond the walls of the old one.

Kerman's name travelled the world on its carpets. The city and its province have woven for centuries, and Kerman rugs — finely knotted, often with curving floral designs and pale grounds — are among the best known Persian types. Pateh, a Kermani needlework in which coloured thread, often silk, is stitched in paisley, cypress and sun patterns onto a broad piece of woollen cloth, is the other local craft, sold in the bazaar and made in villages across the province.

The city is closely associated with Sufism through the shrine at Mahan, where Shah Nematollah Vali, a poet and the founder of the Nimatullahi order, is buried; the order spread from here across Iran and beyond, and the shrine draws visitors of many kinds. Alongside it the ordinary Shia calendar is kept with the seriousness usual in provincial Iran, and the Muharram processions through the bazaar quarter are the largest public gatherings of the year.

Kermanis have a reputation in Iran for a dry sense of humour and for deliberateness of speech, and the local dialect of Persian is distinct enough to be noticed elsewhere. Daily sociability revolves around tea, the bazaar and, in a province of orchards, the exchange of nuts, dates and sweets as gifts. The zurkhaneh, the traditional gymnasium of clubs, drum and sung verse, survives here as it does across the plateau.

About 540,000 people live in Kerman, making it one of the larger cities of eastern Iran and the administrative centre of a province the size of a small country. The economy rests on three things: mining, above all the open-cast copper at Sarcheshmeh, among the largest deposits in the world, and others in the hills; agriculture, especially the pistachios of Rafsanjan and the dates of the low country; and the trade and government that any provincial capital carries, along with a large university.

Life has spread outward from the old centre. The bazaar quarter still works, but most people live in the newer districts to the north and west, in apartment blocks and walled houses along wide avenues, and travel by car or shared taxi. The city also holds a substantial Afghan community, and its position on the routes north from the Pakistani border has long made drug smuggling a serious policing problem for the province.

Water governs everything. The qanats that watered Kerman for centuries are failing, groundwater is over-pumped, and drought has cut the pistachio harvests that much of the province depends on, with land subsidence visible in some farming districts. Days begin early and pause through the strongest afternoon sun; evenings are cool at this altitude even in summer. Like the rest of the country, the city has lived through years of sanctions, high inflation and, since February 2026, war.

Kerman's best-known thing to eat is kolompeh, a round pastry stamped with a pattern and filled with a paste of dates and cardamom, made across the province and bought by the box to take away. Behind it stands the province's agriculture: pistachios from Rafsanjan, eaten fresh and green in autumn and roasted and salted the rest of the year, and dates from the hot lowlands to the south and east, which appear in sweets, with tea and on their own.

Savoury cooking is that of the plateau — lamb kebab grilled over charcoal with saffron rice, grilled tomatoes and herbs; abgusht, the lamb, chickpea and potato stew pounded to a paste at the table and eaten with bread; and thick ash soups of noodles, pulses and herbs. Goat as well as lamb is eaten, and the province's dates and walnuts find their way into savoury cooking as well as sweets.

Drinks are tea above all, poured black and strong and taken with a date, a pistachio or a lump of sugar held between the teeth. Doogh, salted yoghurt thinned with water and mint, goes with grilled food, and chilled sharbats of rosewater and sweet basil seeds help through the heat of the day. Alcohol is illegal.