Hamadan, Iran

🇮🇷 Hamadan is the capital city of Hamadan Province of Iran. The majority of people living in Hamadan identify as ethnic Persians.

Hamedan is believed to be among the oldest Iranian cities. It is possible that it was occupied by the Assyrians in 1100 BCE; the Ancient Greek historian, Herodotus, states that it was the capital of the Medes, around 700 BCE.

Hamadan has a green mountainous area in the foothills of the 3,574-meter Alvand Mountain, in the midwest part of Iran. The city is 1,850 meters above sea level.

The special nature of this old city and its historic sites attract tourists during the summer to this city, located approximately 360 km (220 miles) south-west of Tehran.

The old city and its historic sites attract tourists during the summer. The major sights of this city are the Ganj Nameh inscription, the Avicenna monument and the Baba Taher monument. The majority of the population is Persian; however, there is a considerable Azerbaijani minority.

History According to Clifford Edmund Bosworth, "Hamadan is a very old city. It may conceivably, but improbably, be mentioned in cuneiform texts from ca. 1100 BC, the time of Assyrian King Tiglath-Pileser I, but is certainly mentioned by Herodotus who says that the king of Media Diokes built the city of Agbatana or Ekbatana in the 7th century BC".

Hamadan was established by the Medes. It then became one of several capital cities of the Achaemenid Dynasty.

Hamadan is mentioned in the biblical book of Ezra (Ezra 6:2) as the place where a scroll was found giving the Jews permission from King Darius to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. Its ancient name of Ecbatana is used in the Ezra text. Because it was a mile above sea level, it was a good place to preserve leather documents.

During the Parthian era, Ctesiphon was the capital of the country, and Hamadan was the summer capital and residence of the Parthian rulers. After the Parthians, the Sassanids constructed their summer palaces in this city. In 642 the Battle of Nahavand took place and Hamadan fell into the hands of the Muslim Arabs.

During the rule of the Buyid dynasty, the city suffered much damage. However, the city regained its former glory under the rule of the Buyid ruler Fanna Khusraw. The Seljuks launched campaigns to take the city in the 1040s, ultimately taking the final Kakuyid fortress in 1047. The Seljuks later shifted their capital from Baghdad to Hamadan. In 1220, Hamadan was destroyed by the Mongols during the Mongol invasions of Georgia before the Battle of Khunan. The city of Hamadan, its fortunes following the rise and fall of regional powers, was completely destroyed during the Timurid invasions, but later thrived during the Safavid era.

Thereafter, in the 18th century, Hamadan was surrendered to the Ottomans, but due to the work of Nader Shah, Hamadan was cleared of invaders and, as a result of a peace treaty between Iran and the Ottomans, it was returned to Iran; During the early 18th century chaos in Iran, various tribal groups, including Kurdish tribes, took advantage of the instability. In 1719, Kurdish tribes temporarily seized Hamadan and advanced nearly as far as Isfahan. Hamadan stands on the Silk Road, and even in recent centuries the city enjoyed strong commerce and trade as a result of its location on the main road network in the western region of Iran. In the late 19th century, American missionaries, including James W. Hawkes and Belle Sherwood Hawke, established schools in Hamadan.

During World War I, the city was the scene of heavy fighting between Russian and Turko-German forces. It was occupied by both armies, and finally by the British, before it was returned to the control of the Iranian government at the end of the war in 1918.

Demographics A majority of the population speaks the Hamadani dialect of Persian and standard Persian, with a Turkic minority.

At the time of the 2006 National Census, the city's population was 473,149 in 127,812 households. The following census in 2011 counted 525,794 people in 156,556 households. The 2016 census measured the population of the city as 554,406 people in 174,731 households.

Sport PAS Hamedan F.C. were founded on June 9, 2007 after the dissolution of PAS Tehran F.C. The team, along with Alvand Hamedan F.C., is in the Azadegan League.

Some sport complexes in this city include: Qods Stadium, Shahid Mofatteh Stadium, Takhti Sport Complex and the National Stadium of Hamadan.

Education Before the Persian Constitutional Revolution, education in Hamadan was limited to some Maktab Houses and theological schools. Fakhrie Mozafari School was the first modern school of Hamadan, which was built after that revolution. Alliance and Lazarist were also the first modern schools founded by foreign institutions in Hamadan.

Some of the popular universities in Hamadan include: • Bu-Ali Sina University • Hamadan Medical University • Hamadan University of Technology • Islamic Azad University of Hamadan.