Ahvaz is located in Khuzestan plain with the height of 18 meters above the sea level and enjoys a hot and humid climate. This city surrounded by fertile and flat plain from the north and center, sand dunes from east and west and arid plain of Maron from southern and southeastern which contains a huge source of gas and oil and this city is placed in the hottest areas of Iran due to the acute shortage of vegetation.
Ahvaz is a large, vast, most advanced and populous city in Khuzestan and one of the most important economic and industrial centers in Iran .The big industrial factories, National Iranian South oil fields company and National Iranian Drilling Company turn this city into one of the most significant industrial centers in Iran and it is the cause of attracting the immigrants. This city is the important transit way connecting the cities of Iran to significant ports, including Mahshahr, Abadan, Imam Khomeini and Khoramshahr as Marine borders, and Shalamcheh and Chazabe as the land borders to Iraq by land ways, railways and airways. Big and valid universities of Ahvaz have a privileged position in terms of their high educational system.
Karun with the highest water level, known as the biggest and longest river of Iran and Middle East divides Ahvaz into east and west parts, and the bridges on this river are the symbols of this town and the most important tourist attractions beside the remains of the imposing war, religious places and historical buildings of Ahvaz. Different nations such as Arabs, Bakhtiari, Behbahani, Dezfouli, Ramhormozi, Shushtari and etc., constitute the main Ahvaz residents. Ahvaz is the center of Mandaean religion in Iran and one of the places where the Chaldean and Assyrian Catholic Christian bishops live there. A small group of Sabaeian lives in Ahvaz most of them are active in Silversmith.
The ruins of the holy city of the Kingdom of Elam, surrounded by three huge concentric walls, are found at Chogha Zanbil. Founded c. 1250 B.C., the city remained unfinished after it was invaded by Ashurbanipal, as shown by the thousands of unused bricks left at the site.
Located in ancient Elam (today Khuzestan province in southwest Iran), Tchogha Zanbil (Dur-Untash, or City of Untash, in Elamite) was founded by the Elamite king Untash-Napirisha (1275-1240 BCE) as the religious centre of Elam. The principal element of this complex is an enormous ziggurat dedicated to the Elamite divinities Inshushinak and Napirisha. It is the largest ziggurat outside of Mesopotamia and the best preserved of this type of stepped pyramidal monument. The archaeological site of Tchogha Zanbil is an exceptional expression of the culture, beliefs, and ritual traditions of one of the oldest indigenous peoples of Iran. Our knowledge of the architectural development of the middle Elamite period (1400-1100 BCE) comes from the ruins of Tchogha Zanbil and of the capital city of Susa 38 km to the north-west of the temple).
The ziggurat originally measured 105.2 m on each side and about 53 m in height, in five levels, and was crowned with a temple. Mud brick was the basic material of the whole ensemble. The ziggurat was given a facing of baked bricks, a number of which have cuneiform characters giving the names of deities in the Elamite and Akkadian languages. Though the ziggurat now stands only 24.75 m high, less than half its estimated original height, its state of preservation is unsurpassed. Studies of the ziggurat and the rest of the archaeological site of Tchogha Zanbil containing other temples, residences, tomb-palaces, and water reservoirs have made an important contribution to our knowledge about the architecture of this period of the Elamites, whose ancient culture persisted into the emerging Achaemenid (First Persian) Empire, which changed the face of the civilised world at
Shushtar, Historical Hydraulic System, inscribed as a masterpiece of creative genius, can be traced back to Darius the Great in the 5th century B.C. It involved the creation of two main diversion canals on the river Kârun one of which, Gargar canal, is still in use providing water to the city of Shushtar via a series of tunnels that supply water to mills. It forms a spectacular cliff from which water cascades into a downstream basin. It then enters the plain situated south of the city where it has enabled the planting of orchards and farming over an area of 40,000 ha. known as Mianâb (Paradise). The property has an ensemble of remarkable sites including the Salâsel Castel, the operation centre of the entire hydraulic system, the tower where the water level is measured, dams, bridges, basins and mills. It bears witness to the know-how of the Elamites and Mesopotamians as well as more recent Nabatean expertise and Roman building influence.
The Shushtar Historical Hydraulic System demonstrates outstanding universal value as in its present form, it dates from the 3rd century CE, probably on older bases from the 5th century BCE. It is complete, with numerous functions, and large-scale, making it exceptional. The Shushtar system is a homogeneous hydraulic system, designed globally and completed in the 3rd century CE. It is as rich in its diversity of civil engineering structures and its constructions as in the diversity of its uses (urban water supply, mills, irrigation, river transport, and defensive system). The Shushtar Historical Hydraulic System testifies to the heritage and the synthesis of earlier Elamite and Mesopotamian knowhow; it was probably influenced by the Petra dam and tunnel and by Roman civil engineering. The Shushtar hydraulic system, in its ensemble and most particularly the Shâdorvân Grand Weir (bridge-dam), has been considered a Wonder of the World not only by the Persians but also by the Arab-Muslims at the peak of their civilisation. The Gargar canal is a veritable artificial watercourse which made possible the construction of a new town and the irrigation of a vast plain, at the time semi-desert. The Shushtar Historical Hydraulic System sits in an urban and rural landscape specific to the expression of its value.
The Tomb of Daniel is the traditional burial place of the biblical and Islamic prophet Daniel. Various locations have been named for the site, but the tomb in Susa, Iran (Persia), is the most widely accepted, it being first mentioned by Benjamin of Tudela, who visited Asia between 1160 and 1163.
The Book of Daniel mentions that Daniel lived in Babylon and may have visited the palace of Susa, Iran, but the place where he died is not specified; the tradition preserved among the Jews and Arabs is that he was buried in Susa. Today the Tomb of Daniel in Susa is a popular attraction among local Muslims and Iran’s Jewish community alike.
White bridge or Arches Bridge is the first suspension bridge of Iran, the fourth steel suspended bridge in all around the world built less than 50 years after the establishment and opening of Brooklyn Bridge (the first steel bridge of the world), which was built by a German engineer family on the Karoon beautiful river with two concrete arches of 12 and 20 m on a concrete foundation at the center of Ahvaz in 1315.
This bridge which is known as white bridge is the second bridge of Ahvaz with two big steel arches and the symbol of Ahvaz now.
Arches Bridge was the first traffic and pedestrian bridge which has made a connection between old and new Ahvaz.