Shiraz
Shiraz, city, capital of Fars ostān (province), southwestern Iran. It is located in central Fars in the southern part of the Zagros Mountains, on an agricultural lowland at an elevation of 4,875 feet (1,486 meters). Famous for its wine, it is both a historic site and an attractive modern city, with gardens, shrines, and mosques. Shiraz is the birthplace of the Persian poets Saʿdī and Ḥāfeẓ, whose garden tombs, both resplendently renovated, lie on the northern outskirts. Despite calamitous floods (1630, 1668), pestilences, famines, and earthquakes (chiefly 1824, 1853), much of the city has survived.
Shiraz was important during the Seleucid (312–175 bce), Parthian (247 bce–224 CE), and Sasanian (c. 224–651 CE) periods. In the early 13th century the Mongols built the New Mosque and the fortress Bāgh-e Takht. In 1387 and again in 1393, Timur (Tamerlane), the Turkic conqueror, occupied Shiraz, which—with its Congregational Mosque (894), Shah Cheragh shrine (1344–49), and Great Library (later the Madrasseh, or theological school; 1615)—had become a Muslim center rivaling Baghdad. In 1724 the city was sacked by Afghan invaders. Shiraz became capital of the Zand dynasty (1750–94), whose founder, the vakīl (regent) Karīm Khān Zand, adorned the old city with many fine buildings, including his mausoleum (an octagonal tiled kiosk, now a museum); the Ark, or citadel (now a prison); and the Vakīl Bazaar and Mosque. Buildings in the new city include the Persian Church of St. Simon the Zealot and the university (1945).
The city, a trading and road center for the central Zagros Mountains, is linked to Bushehr, its port on the Persian Gulf. It has cement, sugar, and fertilizer factories and textile mills. Traditional inlay work flourishes, as does weaving in the surrounding region. Pop. (2016) 1,565,572.