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Environmental
and natural phenomena play a greatly significant role in
laying the region’s interrelated cultural, economic and
social infrastructures. This is specially true with
provinces in desert regions of Iran such as Yazd, and
Sistan and Baluchistan (all being arid and desert
territories).
Yazd
province lies in the heart of the country’s sun-drenched
central desert scorched by one of the world’s most arid
territories. It is fringed on the north by Nain city in
Isfahan Province and is cut on the northeastern side by
Tabas in Khorasan province. Sitting astride the imaginary
line that separates it from Fars province, is Abadeh in
eastern side. It nestles against Zarand town in Kerman and
again Tabas in Khorasan, and in the west it nudges the
city of Isfahan in Isfahan province. Covering an area of
76,156 square Kilometers, Yazd province ranks sixth among
the country’s largest provinces.
Average
annual rainfall, which usually comes down as sporadic,
drizzles from mid-winter till early spring is about 59 mms
on the plains and 112-47 mm in mountainous areas. For an
extensively arid area as Yazd, this little rainfall has
afflicted the region with austere water resources.
This
broad unbroken expanse of dry land is seemingly humblest
geographically, but this location in suppressive hot
central Iran has kept Yazd remote from and unaffected by
crises, confrontations and cultural incursions, which have
left their indelible marks on other parts of the country.
Scarcely
ever is the scorched feverish earth fascinating, but there
is a haunting majesty in Yazd’s bare but most imposing
mountains. To break the monotonous flatness of the desert
plain in a northwest-southeast direction, raise two mighty
mountain ranges, one of which is the continuation of
Iran’s central mountain range crisscrossing through the
heart of the country.
The
other is a chain of scattered mountain spires straggling
through Yazd province, Shirkouh, Kharanoq, Heresht, Miraji,
Saqand, Herat, Jowestan, Nodoushan, and Marvast mountains.
Stretching
in a northwest-southeast span, about 20 km from Yazd city,
is Shirkouh mountain, the most popular and protuberant
among the provincial heights. This mount, located
southwest of the province, separates the central parts
from the Abarkooh. Not to be overlooked are the Lounge and
Salidi peaks which rise 2525 m and 3320 m above the plain
respectively and dominate the desert skyline.
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