A Study on Typology of Southern Iranian Cities, Ports and Islands by Considering Criterion of Prosperity

During the last decades, Iran’s southern provinces have been among the most important spots in the world because of their strategic location toward the Persian Gulf and the Oman Sea. However, despite the importance of those spots, there have been little academic research on their urban structures.  Many ancient  structures in Iran’s southern areas have been destroyed by severe weather over time and only a few sites remain from the Qajar era. This adds to the importance of taking efforts to preserve those sites.  In fact, the protection and documentation of the remained buildings of Qajar era in southern Iran is important since in today’s architecture, it can be used as examples of vernacular architecture in adaptation with environmental conditions. The  degree of prosperity of any city can be a crucial factor in studying its urban structures in any given juncture.  To the same effect, the present paper will first identify the main prosperity criteria in Iran’s southern cities based on available scripts from the Qajar era and then will then determine the typology attributes by combination of characteristics. The typology will be a descriptive typology and has a grounded structure. The data will be gathered through theoretical studies, based on scripts available from the Qajar era written documents such as itineraries and historical books. This paper will first identify the criteria of prosperity in this region as illustrated in the scripts remaining from Qajar era.    The results show that during the Qajar era the existence of drinking water, fertile land and geographical positioning were important criteria for considering a region as prosperous.   Further factors included the secure and easy access to land and marine passages.  Based on the combined factors for the research, 12 cities, ports and islands were identified and an analysis on the typologies showed that the main criterion for prosperity in ports is easy access to the open sea.  This is while drinking water, fertile land and easy access to the open sea are the main criteria for prosperity of cities.  As for islands, the important criteria for prosperity are drinking water, fertile land.     Results also show that easy access to the open sea and geographic positioning were the most frequent criteria for the prosperity of ports. This is while drinking water, fertile land and easy access to land are the main criteria for prosperity of cities. As for Islands, the important criteria for prosperity are drinking water, fertile land and sea resources.