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Kerman is the capital of Kerman province in south-central Iran, on a flat plain 1,755 m above sea level at the edge of the Lut Desert, 800 km south-east of Tehran. Its top sights are the Safavid Ganjali Khan Complex, the Jameh and Malek mosques and the Jabalieh Dome, with the Shah Nematollah Vali Shrine and Shazdeh Garden at nearby Mahan.
Ardashir I, founder of the Sasanian Empire, set up the city as a defensive outpost called Veh-Ardashir in the 3rd century AD, and the name Kerman was adopted in the 10th century. When Marco Polo visited in 1271 it was a major trade emporium linking the Persian Gulf with Khorasan and Central Asia, and it grew fast under the Safavids.
The city had 537,718 people in 2016, mostly Persian Muslims with a small Zoroastrian minority, and its fire temple houses Iran's only anthropology museum devoted to Zoroastrianism. Kerman carpets are renowned internationally, and the city has a cold desert climate with hot summers, cool to cold winters and scarce rain.
Ganjali Khan Square is the heart of the Ganjali Khan Complex in the old centre of Kerman, Iran, built by Ganj Ali Khan, who governed Kerman for Abbas the Great from 1596 to 1621. Measuring 99 by 54 metres, it is ringed by bazaar arcades and a caravanserai, like Naqsh-e Jahan Square in Isfahan.
The Ganjali Khan Bathhouse in Kerman, Iran, was built in 1611 off the Ganjali Bazaar on the south side of Ganjali Square. Its domed disrobing, cold and hot rooms are rich in tiles, paintings and stucco, and since 1971 it has been an anthropology museum filled with lifelike statues.
The Ganjali Khan Caravanserai stands on the east side of Ganjali Square in Kerman, Iran, its portal bearing a 1598 inscription by the calligrapher Ali Reza Abbasi. Two-storey halls and tall iwans surround a courtyard with an octagonal fountain, and a small domed mosque sits in one corner.
The Ganjali Khan Coin Museum in Kerman, Iran, fills the complex's old mint, built between 1598 and 1625 with ochre plasterwork and brickwork under a tall dome lit by a cupola. Turned into a numismatics museum in 1970, it shows Parthian, Sasanian, Safavid and Afsharid coins.
The Jameh Mosque of Kerman, Iran, is a Friday mosque built in 1350 in the Ilkhanid style under the Muzaffarid ruler Mubariz al-Din Muhammad. Its western side has a high portal covered in decorative tilework and a watch tower, and it joined Iran's National Heritage List in 1937.
The Malek Mosque in Kerman, Iran, also called the Imam Mosque, was built under the Seljuk ruler Turan Shah I between 1077 and 1096 and is the city's biggest and oldest mosque. Four iwans face a large courtyard with a small pool, and its dome, an iwan and a minaret date from Seljuk times.
The Jabalieh Dome, or Gabri Dome, in Kerman, Iran, is a 12th-century domed building known for its stone masonry, one of the finest examples of this way of building from Iran's Islamic period. Built of stone and gypsum, it takes its ideas from the Sasanian architecture of pre-Islamic Iran.
The Mushtaqieh Dome in Kerman, Iran, also called the Three Domes, is a Shia mausoleum complex whose present building dates from 1838 under Mohammad Shah Qajar. Its three domed tombs hold the dervish Mushtaq Ali Shah, his student Kausar Ali Shah and the mystic Shaykh Ismail al-Herati.
The Shah Nematollah Vali Shrine in Mahan, 30 km south-east of Kerman, Iran, holds the tomb of the Sufi poet and mystic, who died in 1431. Built from 1436 and extended by Shah Abbas I in 1601, it has four courtyards, a reflecting pool and twin minarets tiled in turquoise up to the cupola.
Shazdeh Garden is a Qajar-era Persian garden 6 km from Mahan, near Kerman, Iran, spread over 5.5 hectares inside a rectangular wall. Water fountains run between the entrance gate at the lower end and a two-floor residence at the top, and it became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2011.
Rayen Castle is an adobe fortress in the town of Rayen, about 100 km south of Kerman, Iran, guarding a mudbrick town lived in until 1868. Believed to be at least 1,000 years old, it stood on a trade route known for textiles, swords and knives, and it is still well preserved, unlike Arg-e Bam.
The Lut Desert, or Dasht-e Lut, lies at the edge of Shahdad, 95 km by road from Kerman, Iran, and became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2016. Wind has carved its centre into ridges up to 75 m high, and its sand has reached 70.7 °C, the highest land surface temperature known on Earth.
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