Half the World — the Safavid capital whose Imam Square is one of the largest and most beautiful urban spaces on Earth, where turquoise-tiled mosques, a palace, and a bazaar face each other across a space designed to dazzle envoys from every empire
Isfahan is Iran's great showpiece city — a monument to the Safavid Empire at its height. Shah Abbas I moved the capital here in 1598 and spent decades transforming it into what contemporaries called 'Nesf-e Jahan' (half the world): Naqsh-e Jahan Square, at 512 metres long and 163 metres wide, is the second-largest city square on Earth and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, flanked by the Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque (whose dome changes from cream to pink to terracotta as the light shifts), the Shah Mosque (Masjed-e Shah, whose entrance portal is 30 metres high and covered in muqarnas and azure tilework…
Isfahan was a significant city under the Sassanid Empire and early Islamic Caliphates, but its golden age was the Safavid dynasty (1501–1736). Shah Abbas I made Isfahan the Safavid capital in 1598 and embarked on an unprecedented programme of architectural patronage: Naqsh-e Jahan Square, the Shah Mosque, the Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque, the Ali Qapu palace, and 162 new mosques, 48 religious schools, and 1,802 caravanserais were built during his reign. Shah Abbas forcibly relocated 300,000 Armenians from Julfa (modern Azerbaijan) to a new quarter of Isfahan in 1604–05, primarily to acquire their…