Bojnord ( fa, ; also romanized Bojnūrd, Bujnūrd, Bojnoord, Bojnord or Bujnurd), known in the Middle Ages as Buzanjird, is the capital city of

North Khorasan Province North Khorasan Province ( fa, استان خراسان شمالی, ''Ostān-e Khorāsān-e Shomālī'') is a province located in northeastern Iran. Bojnord is the capital of the province. The counties of North Khorasan Province are Shirvan Count ...

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

. It is about from

Tehran Tehran (; fa, تهران ) is the largest city in Tehran Province and the capital of Iran. With a population of around 9 million in the city and around 16 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the most popul ...

. and It is located 237 km away from Mashhad, the capital of Khorasan Razavi province.

History

According to local tradition, the whole area was controlled by the

Qarai Turks The Karai or Qarai Turks are a Turkic minority mostly found in Khorasan and Iran especially Torbat-e Heydarieh. At the start of the Qajar dynasty, Qarai Turks were also scattered even beyond southern Khorasan through the desert zone of Sistan. ...

since the

Mongol invasion The Mongol invasions and conquests took place during the 13th and 14th centuries, creating history's largest contiguous empire: the Mongol Empire ( 1206- 1368), which by 1300 covered large parts of Eurasia. Historians regard the Mongol devastati ...

in the 13th century. Bojnurd is of recent origin and possibly built by the

Safavids Safavid Iran or Safavid Persia (), also referred to as the Safavid Empire, '. was one of the greatest Iranian empires after the 7th-century Muslim conquest of Persia, which was ruled from 1501 to 1736 by the Safavid dynasty. It is often conside ...

for the

Kurdish Kurdish may refer to: *Kurds or Kurdish people *Kurdish languages *Kurdish alphabets *Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes: **Southern Kurdistan **Eastern Kurdistan **Northern Kurdistan **Western Kurdistan See also * Kurd (dis ...

Şadiyan tribe who had been settled there to strengthen the Safavid borders against hostile

Turkics The Turkic peoples are a collection of diverse ethnic groups of West, Central, East, and North Asia as well as parts of Europe, who speak Turkic languages.. "Turkic peoples, any of various peoples whose members speak languages belonging to the ...

. Traditionally, the city was surrounded by a

defensive wall A defensive wall is a fortification usually used to protect a city, town or other settlement from potential aggressors. The walls can range from simple palisades or earthworks to extensive military fortifications with towers, bastions and gates ...

and consisted of eleven quarters,

bazaars A bazaar () or souk (; also transliterated as souq) is a marketplace consisting of multiple small stalls or shops, especially in the Middle East, the Balkans, North Africa and India. However, temporary open markets elsewhere, such as in the W ...

and four mosques. In 1849, the city saw a revolt which destroyed the city. When traveller G. C. Napier visited the city in 1876, it was noted that the chief of Bojnurd was a Kurd who governed the city without taxation in exchange for military support to the central government in

. The city experienced severe earthquakes in 1896 and 1929 which destroyed the city and its surroundings. The city would consequently be rebuilt without historical or recent fortifications in a modern matter. In 1997, a magnitude 6.5 earthquake caused significant damage and many fatalities in the city.

ٔNatural geography

Bojnourd city, the capital of North Khorasan province with an area of 36 square kilometers, is located in northeastern Iran at 57 degrees and 20 minutes longitude and 37 degrees and 28 minutes latitude south of Kopedagh mountain range and east of Aladagh mountain range and north of

Alborz mountain range The Alborz ( fa, البرز) range, also spelled as Alburz, Elburz or Elborz, is a mountain range in northern Iran that stretches from the border of Azerbaijan along the western and entire southern coast of the Caspian Sea and finally runs nort ...

. Bojnourd is 1070 meters above sea level and its distance to Tehran is 821 kilometers.

Colleges and universities

Universities located in Bojnord include: *

University of Bojnurd A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, the ...

North Khorasan University of Medical Sciences North Khorasan University of Medical Sciences ( fa, دانشگاه علوم پزشکی و خدمات بهداشتی درمانی خراسان شمالی) is a public university in Bojnord, Iran. The University has four faculties including medicine, ...

Islamic Azad University of Bojnurd

Eshragh Institute of Higher Education (Bojnurd, North Khorasan)

Payam Noor University of Bojnurd

Notables from Bojnurd

Abdolhossein Teymourtash Abdolhossein Teymourtash ( fa, عبدالحسین تیمورتاش; 25 September 1883 – 3 October 1933) was an influential Iranian statesman who served as the first minister of court of the Pahlavi dynasty from 1925 to 1932, and is credited w ...

(Sardar Moazzam Khorasani), a distinguished and influential politician of the 20th century (

Pahlavi Dynasty The Pahlavi dynasty ( fa, دودمان پهلوی) was the last Iranian royal dynasty, ruling for almost 54 years between 1925 and 1979. The dynasty was founded by Reza Shah Pahlavi, a non-aristocratic Mazanderani soldier in modern times, who ...

) *

Ali-Akbar Davar Ali-Akbar Dāvar ( fa, علی‌اکبر داور also known as Mirza Ali-Akbar Khan-e Dāvar, 1885 – 9 February 1937) was an Iranian politician and judge and the founder of the modern judicial system of Iran. Biography Born in 1885

, politician and judge and the founder of the modern

judicial system of Iran A nationwide judicial system in Iran was first implemented and established by Abdolhossein Teymourtash under Reza Shah, with further changes during the second Pahlavi era. After the 1979 overthrow of the Pahlavi dynasty by the Islamic Revolut ...

* Kazem Mousavi Bojnurdi, historian, theologian, writer and the curator of the

National Library of Iran The National Library and Archives of Iran (NLAI) or National Library of the Islamic Republic of Iran is located in Tehran, Iran, with twelve branches across the country. The NLAI is an educational, research, scientific, and service institute aut ...

(1997–2005) * Mohammad Davari, journalist, known for arrest in

2009–10 Iranian election protests After incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared victory in the 2009 Iranian presidential election, protests broke out in major cities across Iran in support of opposition candidates Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi. The protests con ...

* Ehsan Khoshbakht, film critic and curator and the co-director of

Il Cinema Ritrovato Il Cinema Ritrovato (meaning "cinema rediscovered") is a festival dedicated to the history of cinema, screening classics, retrospectives and showcasing the latest restored films from labs and archives around the world. The majority of the films sh ...

Bologna Bologna (, , ; egl, label= Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nat ...

, Italy

Climate

Bojnord has a

cold semi-arid climate A semi-arid climate, semi-desert climate, or steppe climate is a dry climate sub-type. It is located on regions that receive precipitation below potential evapotranspiration, but not as low as a desert climate. There are different kinds of semi-ar ...

(''BSk'') according to the

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, notabl ...

References

External links

{{Provincial capitals of Iran Cities in North Khorasan Province Iranian provincial capitals Populated places in Bojnord County Kurdish settlements in Iran