Shiraz & the South

The south-west was the home of Elam, one of the world's earliest civilisations, whose capital Susa and religious centre at Chogha Zanbil flourished on the Khuzestan plain in the second millennium BC. To the east, in Fars — the Greeks' Persis, which gave Persia its name — Cyrus the Great founded the Achaemenid Empire in the 6th century BC and built Pasargadae, where his tomb still stands. Darius I began Persepolis around 518 BC, and Alexander burned it in 330 BC. Fars was again the cradle of empire under the Sasanians, who rose there in the 3rd century AD and left rock reliefs at Naqsh-e Rostam and cities at Firuzabad and Bishapur.

Shiraz grew under Islamic rule and was spared by the Mongols, and its poets Saadi, of the 13th century, and Hafez, of the 14th, made it Iran's literary capital. Karim Khan Zand made it the capital of Iran from the 1760s until his death in 1779 and gave it its bazaar, mosque, baths and citadel. On the coast, the Portuguese seized Hormuz in 1507 and held its trade until a Safavid force, helped by English ships, expelled them in 1622, after which Bandar Abbas took over as the port.

In 1908 oil was struck at Masjed Soleyman in Khuzestan, the first commercial find in the Middle East, and the Abadan refinery made the province the base of the British-run oil industry. When Iraq invaded in 1980, Khuzestan bore the worst of the war: Khorramshahr fell and was retaken in 1982, and Abadan was besieged.

Shirazis are known across Iran for an easy-going manner, a love of gardens and a devotion to their poets; the tomb of Hafez fills at dusk with visitors reciting his verses and opening his divan for an omen. The Qashqai, Turkic-speaking nomads, still move herds between summer and winter pastures in Fars, and their women's bright dresses and their gabbeh and kilim weaving are part of the province's identity. Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad is Lur country, with its own dialect and tribal ties.

Khuzestan is a mix of Persian, Lur and Arab communities. Its Arabs, mostly Shia, speak Khuzestani Arabic. The Gulf coast has a culture of its own, shaped by centuries of trade with Arabia, India and East Africa: bandari music and dance with drums and bagpipe, zar spirit-possession rituals with African roots, and the face masks (battoulah) worn by many women in Hormozgan.

Muharram is marked with mourning processions across the region, and fishing and seafaring traditions survive along the shore.

Shiraz has around 1.6 million people and Ahvaz well over a million. Bandar Abbas, Dezful, Abadan, Bushehr and Yasuj are the other main towns, and Kish and Qeshm have grown quickly as free-trade zones.

The region holds much of Iran's economic weight. Khuzestan's oilfields and the Abadan refinery and Bandar Abbas, a major container port, are central to the national economy. Fars farms wheat, citrus and grapes, and Shiraz has universities, medical centres and electronics industries. Kish is a shopping and resort island for Iranians.

Daily rhythms follow the heat: on the coast, markets open early, streets empty in the afternoon and life resumes after dark on the seafronts. Khuzestan's residents complain bitterly about dust storms and polluted air despite the province's oil wealth.

Shiraz has two famous dishes. Faloodeh shirazi is a frozen dessert of thin starch noodles in rosewater syrup, served with lime juice or sour cherry, and salad shirazi is chopped cucumber, tomato and onion dressed with lime or verjuice. Kalam polo, rice cooked with cabbage and fragrant herbs, is a local favourite, and the city's bitter oranges scent everything in spring.

The Gulf coast cooks with fish, tamarind and spice, reflecting its trade with India and Arabia. Ghalieh mahi is a fish stew of tamarind, coriander and fenugreek. Hormozgan makes mahyawa, a pungent fermented fish sauce eaten with bread. Bandar Abbas and Bushehr sell grilled fish and sambuseh, fried pastries, at their seafronts.

Khuzestan has its own street food: falafel, eaten in sandwiches with sauces in Abadan and Ahvaz, and fish grilled over fire on the riverbanks. Dates from the palm groves of Khuzestan, Bushehr and Hormozgan are sold in dozens of varieties, and lime-and-mint sharbat and doogh are the drinks of the heat.

Fars is the core of ancient Persia. Persepolis, about an hour north of Shiraz, has its Gate of All Nations, the Apadana staircases with their tribute-bearers, and the Palace of Darius. Nearby, Naqsh-e Rostam's cliff tombs of Achaemenid kings sit above Sasanian reliefs, and Pasargadae keeps the simple stone tomb of Cyrus. Shiraz has the tombs of Hafez and Saadi, the Eram garden, the Vakil bazaar and mosque, the Karim Khan citadel, and the Nasir al-Molk Mosque.

In Khuzestan, Chogha Zanbil's ziggurat stands on the plain near Susa, whose excavated palace of Darius and the shrine revered as the tomb of Daniel are close by, and Shushtar's ancient water-mills and canals form another UNESCO World Heritage Site. Ahvaz itself is crossed by the Karun river and its bridges.

On the coast, Bushehr has its historic quarter of old houses facing the Gulf. Off Bandar Abbas, Hormuz Island has multicoloured soils, red beaches and the Portuguese fort. Qeshm has the Chahkooh canyon, the Namakdan salt cave, the Stars Valley's eroded rocks and the Hara mangrove forests, with Hengam island off its southern shore. Inland, the Dena mountains rise above Yasuj in Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad.