Hamadan is believed to be among the oldest Iranian cities. It was referred to in classical sources as Ecbatana (Old PersianHamgmatāna). It is possible that it was occupied by the Assyrians in 1100BCE; the Ancient Greek historian, Herodotus, states that it was the capital of the Medes, around 700BCE.
Hamadan is situated in a green mountainous area in the foothills of the 3,574-meter Alvand Mountain, in midwestern Iran. The city is 1,850meters above sea level. It is located approximately 360 kilometres (220 miles) southwest 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 main language in the city is Persian.[6][7][8]
According to Clifford Edmund Bosworth, "Hamedan is a very old city. It may conceivably, but improbably, be mentioned in cuneiform texts from ca. 1100BC, the time of Assyrian King Tiglath-pilesar 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 centuryBC."[9]
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,[10] ultimately taking the final Kakuyid fortress in 1047.[11] The Seljuks later shifted their capital from Baghdad to Hamadan. In 1220, Hamadan was destroyed by the Mongols[12] 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. 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,[13][14] 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
Language
A majority of the population speaks the Hamadani dialect of Persian and standard Persian, with a Turkic minority.[15]
At the time of the 2006 National Census, the city's population was 473,149 in 127,812 households.[16] The following census in 2011 counted 525,794 people in 156,556 households.[17] The 2016 census measured the population of the city as 554,406 people in 174,731 households.[3]
Climate
Hamadan has a hot-summer, Mediterranean-influenced continental climate (Köppen: Dsa, Trewartha: Dc), in transition with a cold semi-arid climate (Köppen: BSk). The city experiences hot, dry summers, and cold, snowy winters. The temperature may drop below −30 °C (−22 °F) on the coldest days. Heavy snowfall is common during winter and this can persist for periods of up to two months. During the short summer, the weather is hot, and mostly sunny.
Lowest recorded temperature: −34.0 °C (−29 °F) on 7 January 1964[18] Highest recorded temperature: 40.6 °C (105 °F) on 14 July 1989[18]
Climate data for Hamadan Airport (1991-2020, extremes 1961-2020)[b]
^Extremes for Hamadan were recorded at Nozheh air base from 1961 to 1975, in both airport and Nozheh stations from 1976 to 2010 and at the airport from 2011 to 2020. All of the references at the end of the table cite the extreme temperature values.
The Saint Mary Church of Hamadan, an Armenian Apostolic churchA church in Ekbatan Hospital in Hamadan
Hamadan at night. Hamadan was redesigned in 1928 by German architects and urban planners to resemble the spokes of a hexagram.[23][self-published source?]
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:
Hamadan celebrities are divided into 3 categories: pre-Islamic, post-Islamic and contemporary people.
Pre-Islamic celebrities
Among the pre-Islamic celebrities in Hamadan is Mandana, the mother of Cyrus the Great and the daughter of the last king of Media, Ishtovigo.
Famous names after Islam
Famous people of Hamadan after Islam are great people such as:
Baba Taher, Famous poets of the fourth century AH.
Badi'alzaman Hamadani, author of the oldest book in the art of maqam writing.
Abul Ali Hassan Attar, a great literature and famous syntax, vocabulary and hadith in the fourth century AH.
Tomb of Esther and Mordekhai, The Tomb of Esther and Mordechai is a tomb located in Hamadan, Iran. Iranian Jews and Iranian Christians believe it houses the remains of the biblical Queen Esther and her cousin Mordechai, and it is the most important pilgrimage site for Jews and Christians in Iran.
Mirzadeh Eshghi is one of the shining stars of poetry and prose of the play during the Constitutional Revolution.
Bu Ali Sina, one of the rare scientists and geniuses of the time, was born in 370 AH in Khoramisin, Bukhara. He entered this city in 406 AH when Hamadan was the capital of the buyid, and after a while, Shams al-Dawla Dailami made him his minister. During his stay in Hamadan, Bu Ali Sina taught at the city's large school and had the opportunity to complete many of his writings.
The tomb of Bu Ali Sina is now located in a square of the same name in Hamedan.
Significant Incident
In February 1990, the bank's central branch in Hamadan experienced a tragic robbery. The event resulted in the loss of life of the bank manager Abdulrahman Nafisi, his family, and a security guard. The bank manager, Abdulrahman Nafisi, displayed extraordinary courage by prioritizing the safety of the bank's funds over his own life. Despite being under torture, he pleaded with the robbers to take his personal belongings instead of the people's money.[28]
Abolhassan Banisadr (1933–2021), economist, politician, and the first post-revolutionary elected president of the Islamic Republic of IranFazlollah Zahedi and his family
^"Introduction". www.hamedan.rmto.ir. Archived from the original on 22 December 2015. Retrieved 20 December 2015.
^Mohammad Jalal Abbasi-Shavazi, Peter McDonald, Meimanat Hosseini-Chavoshi, "The Fertility Transition in Iran: Revolution and Reproduction", Springer, 2009. pp 100-101: "The first category is 'Central' where the majority of people are Persian speaking ethnic Fars (provinces of Fars, Hamedan, Isfahan, Markazi, Qazvin, Qom, Semnan, Yazd and Tehran..."
^(Parviz Aḏkāʾi and EIr, HAMEDĀN i. GEOGRAPHY in Encyclopædia Iranica:"Languages spoken. Hamedān has been a crossroads of civilizations for millennia and a mosaic of cultures and dialects live there side by side. The main language spoken, especially in the provincial capital and its surroundings, is Persian, which is also the lingua franca in other regions. In the northern parts of the province, however, the language mostly spoken is Azeri Turkish, while in the northwest and west, near the provinces of Kurdistan and Kermānšāhān, people mostly speak Kurdish, while in some other cities such as Malāyer, Nehāvand, and Sāmen most people speak Lori and Lak (Faraji, p. 1296)."
