Mazandaran, Sub Tropical Beauty

shiroyeh · 8th October 2006, 22:37

I present to you fair people of SSL the region of my ancestry, Mazandaran

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Māzandarān (Persian: مازندران, prior to 1596 known as Tabaristan / Tapuristan / Tapuria Persian: تبرستان / تپورستان) is a province in northern Iran, bordering the Caspian (Mazandaran) Sea in the north. Mazandaran was part of the Persian province of Hyrcania.

Sari is the provincial capital. Gorgan also used to be a part of Mazandaran until recently, but is now the capital city of the new Iranian province of Golestan (since 1997).

The Caspian Sea is to the north, the provinces of Tehran and Semnan provinces lie to the south. To the west it has common borders with Gilan province, and to the east stands the province of Golestan.

Climatic conditions of Mazandaran have prevented the preservation of historical monuments. Thus there are only a few sound vestiges remaining from pre-Islamic periods in the coastal plains of Mazandaran. But the province is known to have been populated from early antiquity, and Mazandaran has changed hands among various dynasties from early in its history. There are several fortresses remaining from Parthian and Sassanid times, and many older cemeteries scattered throughout the province.

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Hyrcania was the ancient name of Golestan, Mazandaran, Gilan and parts of Turkmenistan lands within Persian Empire by the Caspian Sea.

The name "Hyrcania" is how it was recorded by the ancient Greek historians from the local name Varkâna in Old Persian as it is recorded in Darius the Great's Behistun Inscription, as well as other inscriptions in Old Persian in cuneiform. In classical antiquity the Caspian Sea was called the Hyrcanian Ocean.

Hyrcania was situated between the Caspian Sea, which was in ancient times called the Hyrcanian Ocean, in the north and the Alborz mountains in the south and west. The country had a tropical climate and was very fertile. The Persians considered it one of "the good lands and countries" which their supreme God Ahura Mazda had created personally. To the northeast, Hyrcania was open to the Central Asian steppes, where nomadic tribes had been living for centuries.

Continued: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyrcania

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