Iran

Yazd

WHS Score 3.59
rate
Votes 47 Average 3.94
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Votes for Yazd

1.5

  • Dimitrios Polychronopoulos

2.0

  • Adrian Turtschi

2.5

  • Mikko
  • Palimpsesto

3.0

  • Alexander Barabanov
  • Alexander Parsons
  • Jon Opol
  • Martina Rúčková
  • Rodinia
  • Wojciech Fedoruk
  • Zoë Sheng

3.5

  • Carlo Sarion
  • Chalamphol Therakul
  • Michael anak Kenyalang
  • Solivagant

4.0

  • Ammon Watkins
  • Bernard Joseph Esposo Guerrero
  • Eric Lurio
  • Hammeel
  • Hanming
  • Ivan Rucek
  • Joyce van Soest
  • Kevin247
  • Krijn
  • merveil
  • Naim Y
  • Philipp Leu
  • Tony H.
  • Wieland
  • Zizmondka

4.5

  • Alexander Lehmann
  • Aspasia
  • Jean Lecaillon
  • MoPython
  • Richard Stone
  • Ssong.x
  • Szucs Tamas

5.0

  • Bardia
  • BH
  • Dutchnick
  • Fmaiolo@yahoo.com
  • George Gdanski
  • ge zhang
  • Javier
  • Juropa
  • Stanislaw Warwas
  • Tarquinio_Superbo

The Historic City of Yazd is a traditional earthen city where life has been adapted to its desert location, most notably via the water system of the qanats.

The earthen buildings have sunken courtyards and underground spaces to deal with the climatic circumstances. Yazd dates back to the Achaemenid era and prospered from trade from the Silk and Spice Roads, which is reflected in religious buildings of diverse religions, bazaars and caravanserais.

Community Perspective: Worth a day’s visit. Solivagant has listed a number of sights around Yazd, although you shouldn’t expect any world class buildings. Michael left with the impression of the colour of mud, as all the buildings are the same colours as the surrounding desert, and Jean enjoyed that it’s human-sized.

Site Info

Official Information
Full Name
Historic city of Yazd (ID: 1544)
Country
Iran
Status
Inscribed 2017 Site history
History of Yazd
2017: Inscribed
Inscribed
WHS Type
Cultural
Criteria
  • iii
  • v
Links
UNESCO
whc.unesco.org
All Links
UNESCO.org
Related Resources
News Article
  • Aug. 6, 2022 rferl.org — Floods In Historic Iranian City Fuel Concerns Over World-Renowned Monuments

Community Information

  • Community Category
  • Urban landscape: Asian
Travel Information
Exact locations inscribed twice (or more)
Exact locations inscribed twice (or more)
Dolat-abad Persian garden (also part of Persian Garden WHS) plus qanats (Qanat WHS)
Red Zone Travel Advisory
Red Zone Travel Advisory
Iran fully off-limits
Recent Connections
View all (27) .
Connections of Yazd
Individual People
Trivia
History
  • Silk Roads
    Connecting Southern Route with Maritime Silk Road; "located in the deserts of Iran close to the Spice and Silk Roads." (AB ev)
Architecture
  • Timurid Architecture
    Some parts of the Jame Mosque were built by the Timurids. (AB ev)
  • Glazed tiles
    Jame mosque: the portal's facade is decorated from top to bottom in dazzling tile work, predominantly blue in colour. (wiki)
  • Muqarnas
    Duvazdah Imam Mausoleum has one of the first muqarnas we know of

    See en.wikipedia.org

  • Earth Architecture
    Yazd is also one of the largest cities built almost entirely out of adobe. (wiki)
World Heritage Process
Religion and Belief
Human Activity
Constructions
WHS on Other Lists
Timeline
  • Built in the 11th century
    The oldest dated inscription surviving in Yazd today is on the Davazdah-Imam monument (1008-1051)
Visiting conditions
News
rferl.org 08/06/2022
Floods In Historic Iranian City Fu…
Recent Visitors
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Reserved for members.

Community Reviews

Show full reviews
First published: 29/08/22.

Jean Lecaillon

Yazd

Yazd (Inscribed)

Yazd by Jean Lecaillon

I visited Yazd in 2016 when it wasn't on the WH list. And even if UNESCO didn't inscribe it yet, it was one of my favorite place in Iran.

The reason of my enchantment is that it's a human-size city, quiet small and with pleasant narrow streets. The rammed earth houses and all the constructions are made to protect people against the torrid sun. Ping pong tables seemed also in rammed earth, it was quiet funny.

With two friends of me, we took advantage to be in Yazd to visit a qanat, other WHS inscribed the year we have been in Iran.

Besides the WHS itself, we attended a Zurkhaneh performance, a kind of strength performance. If you have the opportunity to see a such trial in Iran, just do it! :)

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First published: 08/04/19.

Michael Anak Kenyalang

Yazd

Yazd (Inscribed)

Yazd by Michael anak Kenyalang

I visited in December 2017 from Shiraz, taking the local bus at 2pm and arrived around 9pm.

I stayed at a local caravanserai not far from the Jame Mosque. So the first thing to do in the morning after the warm chai was to visit the Jame Mosque. It's situated in the city center with two tall Shia minarets, the tallest in Iran at 45 meters. Other than that the mosque itself was not that impressive, probable due to the worn out pale colour of the mosaic and ceilings. My main interest in that building was to look for the Zarch Payab (The Persian Qanat WHS) that took me a while to locate it. The was a signpost next to the staircase leading all the way down to the bottom with dimming light. But I was a bit disappointed when I reached the bottom where the big well was situated, as the water was not flowing and it looked it hadn't been used for a long time. It happened the same to the other qanats I went in the city. Maybe they have a modern way to extract the water now. Luckily I saw water flowing at the Kushkno Watermill (Qanat WHS). 

Other than qanat, the city is full with tall wind towers. I was there during winter but I can imagine that it must be very hot during summer time. So the locals built tall wind towers to catch the wind, whichever direction it came from. …

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First published: 24/03/17.

Solivagant

Yazd

Yazd (Inscribed)

Yazd by Solivagant

With this T List site up for consideration at the 2017 WHC in a few months time it seems worth having a review of it available here (especially as those who have already committed themselves to a guess on this site have voted it an “Inscribe”!).

I have tried to remember why I didn’t review it immediately after our visit in May 2016. It was certainly not because it wasn’t an interesting and worthwhile place - we gave it a full day and 2 nights in our very crowded schedule and don’t regret that at all. I have just reread the entry on UNESCO and I think that it might have been part of the reason. The entire description is limited to this one sentence - “The historical structure of Yazd is a collection of public-religious architecture in a very large scope comprising of different Islamic architectural elements of different periods in a harmonious combination with climatic conditions.” Not very specific or anything to home in on! Presumably the rather unusual title “Historical structure of….” is equivalent to the more common “Historic centre (or “city” or “town”) of…..”. I say this because Yazd’s “Structure” is not its most notable aspect with the term implying a plan of some sort. In fact Yazd is of note more for its lack of structure – LP says of it “With its winding lanes, forest of badgirs, mudbrick old town…..Yazd is one of the highlights of any …

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