Kermanshah is the capital city of Kermanshah Province, located 525 km from Tehran in the western part of Iran and about 120 km from the border of Iraq. The estimated population of the city is 822,921. The majority of people speak Kurdish and Persian with Kermanshahi dialect. The religion of most of the people is Shi'a Muslim.

In ancient Iranian mythology, construction of the city is attributed to Tahmoures Divband, the fabulous king of Pishdadian dynasty, however it is believed that the Sassanids have constructed Kermanshah. Bahram IV called Kermanshah gave his name to this city. Kermanshah was conquered by the Arabs in A.D. 640. Under Seljuk rule in the eleventh century, it was a major cultural and commercial centre in Western Iran and the southern Kurdish region as a whole.

Occupied by the Turkish army in 1915 during World War I, it was evacuated in 1917. Kermanshah played an important role in the Iranian Constitutional Revolution during the Qajar period and the Republic Movement in Pahlavi period. The City was hit hard during the Iran–Iraq War, and although it was rebuilt, it has not yet fully recovered.

This province depicts the history of Iran. It has been settled since the Paleolithic and Neolithic ages. The people of Kermanshah were among the oldest people in the world who constructed houses. One can refer to the remnants of buildings and artifacts in Asiab and Tepe Sarab, Ganj Darreh, and Godin prehistoric mounds which date back to the period between the eleventh and 4th millennia BC. Considering the historical monuments found in Kermanshah province, it must have had very glorious times during the Achaemenid and Sassanid eras. It was also important during the Safavid and Qajar dynasties.The sites in Kermanshah are too many to be mentioned even in brief.

The Golden Notebook is the best known and most widely acclaimed of all the works that went to earning Doris Lessing the 2007 Nobel Prize for literature. Doris Lessing was born Doris May Tayler in Kermanshah in 1919. (Both of her parents were British)

Kermanshah Jame' Mosque, placed in Kermanshah city is a relic from the late Zandieh period, which in 1196 A.H. (1802 A.D.) was constructed apparently at the site of the former mosque by Alikhan Zanganeh, the governor of Kermanshah.

Iran

Text : Internet

Pictures: Sanda Foişoreanu

Nicoleta Leu

Arangement: Sanda FoişoreanuSunet: Mikayil from Mahabad - Kurdish dance

Darya Darvar - Vatanam