The spatial structure of Tabriz in Safavid era in comparison with itineraries and pictorial documents

Until the mid Tahmasb era 1555, Tabriz was the capital of the empire, and until the termination of the Safavid era in 1779 it was considered as the second most important city of the Iran from religious, political and economic standpoint and following the same importance, architecture was of great importance in the country. During the Qajar era, the same fame and importance continued and Tabriz was the city of prince and government house and the second city of Iran. Unfortunately, natural disasters such as earthquake of 1779 and other problems such as continuous wars with Ottoman Empire caused the changes of infrastructures of spaces and nowadays after three centuries, the researcher faces many questions about the spatial structure of Tabriz in Safavid era. Since the remaining documents from the era include the building along with itineraries and some drawings by some tourists, therefore, the present paper claims that many important structural changes has happened in spatial structure of Tabriz. Hence, the aim of the present paper is to study and analyze the spatial structure of Tabriz during Safavid era through comparison of itineraries and pictorial documents in order to represent an exact image of spatial structure of the city during Safavid era. In order to achieve the goal, the data are collected using historical-documentary method, texts, sources, and analysis of the data using analytic-comparative methods. Among the results of the research the replacement of governmental part from Northern part of the river to the Southern part, its neighborhood with Eastern wing of the Bazaar, and Sahib Abad Square losing its boom at late Safavid era, the importance of other squares such as Atik square and the changes in physical dimension of the city all could be referred.