, settlement_type = City , image_skyline =خواجه خضر 2.jpg , imagesize = , image_caption = , pushpin_map =Iran , mapsize =150px , subdivision_type =

Country A country is a distinct part of the world, such as a state, nation, or other political entity. It may be a sovereign state or make up one part of a larger state. For example, the country of Japan is an independent, sovereign state, while the ...

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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 ...

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Province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''Roman province, provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire ...

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Kerman Kerman ( fa, كرمان, Kermân ; also romanization of Persian, romanized as Kermun and Karmana), known in ancient times as the satrapy of Carmania, is the capital city of Kerman Province, Iran. At the 2011 census, its population was 821,394, in ...

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County A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesChambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

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Kuhbanan , settlement_type = City , image_skyline =خواجه خضر 2.jpg , imagesize = , image_caption = , pushpin_map =Iran , mapsize =150px , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Iran , subdivisi ...

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District A district is a type of administrative division that, in some countries, is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or counties, several municipalities, subdivisions o ...

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Central Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object. Central may also refer to: Directions and generalised locations * Central Africa, a region in the centre of Africa continent, also known as ...

, leader_title = , leader_name = , established_title = , established_date = , area_total_km2 = , area_footnotes = , population_as_of = 2016 , population_total =10761 , population_footnotes = , population_density_km2 =auto , timezone =

IRST An infrared search and track (IRST) system (sometimes known as infrared sighting and tracking) is a method for detecting and tracking objects which give off infrared radiation, such as the infrared signatures of jet aircraft and helicopters. IR ...

, utc_offset = +3:30 , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , elevation_m = , website = , area_code = , footnotes = Kouhbanan

Kuhbanan ( fa, كوهبنان, also

Romanize Romanization or romanisation, in linguistics, is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and ...

d as Kūhbanān, Koobanan, Kūhbonān, and Kūh Banān; also known as Kūh Baneh) is a city in the Central District of

Kuhbanan County Kuhbanan County ( fa, شهرستان کوهبنان) is in Kerman province, Iran. The capital of the county is the city of Kuhbanan. At the 2006 census, the county's population was 24,465 in 6,348 households. Retrieved 29 October 2022 The fo ...

province,

, and serves as both capital of the county and of the district. At the 2006 National Census, its population was 10,112 in 2,623 households. The following census in 2011 counted 11,093 people in 3,189 households. The latest census in 2016 showed a population of 10,761 people in 3,296 households.

Etymology

The name ''Kūhbanān'' means "

pistachio The pistachio (, ''Pistacia vera''), a member of the cashew family, is a small tree originating from Central Asia and the Middle East. The tree produces seeds that are widely consumed as food. ''Pistacia vera'' is often confused with other sp ...

-tree mountain", from the

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

words ''kūh'', meaning "mountain", and ''banān'', which refers to the wild pistachio.

History

Kuhbanan was described by the 10th-century writer

al-Muqaddasi Shams al-Dīn Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Abī Bakr al-Maqdisī ( ar, شَمْس ٱلدِّيْن أَبُو عَبْد ٱلله مُحَمَّد ابْن أَحْمَد ابْن أَبِي بَكْر ٱلْمَقْدِسِي), ...

as a small town with two

gates Gates is the plural of gate, a point of entry to a space which is enclosed by walls. It may also refer to: People * Gates (surname), various people with the last name * Gates Brown (1939-2013), American Major League Baseball player * Gates McFadde ...

. The town's

jameh mosque A congregational mosque or Friday mosque (, ''masjid jāmi‘'', or simply: , ''jāmi‘''; ), or sometimes great mosque or grand mosque (, ''jāmi‘ kabir''; ), is a mosque for hosting the Friday noon prayers known as ''jumu'ah''.* * * * * * * ...

was by one of these gates. Outside the walled part of the city was a suburban area, where there were bathhouses and

caravanserai A caravanserai (or caravansary; ) was a roadside inn where travelers ( caravaners) could rest and recover from the day's journey. Caravanserais supported the flow of commerce, information and people across the network of trade routes covering ...

s. Beyond this suburban area, Kuhbanan was surrounded by

farm A farm (also called an agricultural holding) is an area of land that is devoted primarily to agricultural processes with the primary objective of producing food and other crops; it is the basic facility in food production. The name is used fo ...

s and

orchard An orchard is an intentional plantation of trees or shrubs that is maintained for food production. Orchards comprise fruit- or nut-producing trees which are generally grown for commercial production. Orchards are also sometimes a feature of larg ...

s that extended as far as the foot of the nearby mountains. Medieval Kuhbanan was renowned for its production of

tutty In alchemy, cadmia (Latin for cadmium) is an oxide of zinc (tutty; from ar, توتيا ''tutiya'', via Persian, from Sanskrit तुत्थ ''tuttha'') which collects on the sides of furnaces where copper or brass was smelted, and zinc sublimed. ...

, an impure oxide of

zinc Zinc is a chemical element with the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. Zinc is a slightly brittle metal at room temperature and has a shiny-greyish appearance when oxidation is removed. It is the first element in group 12 (IIB) of the periodi ...

used as a salve for the eyes. As early as the 10th century, al-Muqaddasi listed tutty from Kuhbanan as one of the major exports of Kerman province. He wrote that it formed in finger-like "pipes", which were then purified by being roasted in long furnaces by the same mountainside where the ore was extracted. In the early 1200s,

Yaqut al-Hamawi Yāqūt Shihāb al-Dīn ibn-ʿAbdullāh al-Rūmī al-Ḥamawī (1179–1229) ( ar, ياقوت الحموي الرومي) was a Muslim scholar of Byzantine Greek ancestry active during the late Abbasid period (12th-13th centuries). He is known fo ...

similarly described Kuhbanan, along with the nearby town of Behabad, as a major exporter of tutty.

Marco Polo Marco Polo (, , ; 8 January 1324) was a Venetian merchant, explorer and writer who travelled through Asia along the Silk Road between 1271 and 1295. His travels are recorded in ''The Travels of Marco Polo'' (also known as ''Book of the Marv ...

visited Kuhbinan, which he called ''Cobinan'', in the 1300s, and provided a detailed description of the local tutty industry. Around the turn of the 20th century, the British traveler

Percy Sykes Brigadier-General Sir Percy Molesworth Sykes, (28 February 1867 – 11 June 1945) was a British soldier, diplomat, and scholar with a considerable literary output. He wrote historical, geographical, and biographical works, as well as describing ...

witnessed the production of tutty in Kuhbanan; the process he described was essentially the same as that used hundreds of years earlier.

References

Kuhbanan County Cities in Kerman Province Populated places in Kerman Province Populated places in Kuhbanan County {{Kuhbanan-geo-stub