Golestan province (Persian: استان گلستان, (Golestân), Ostâne Golestân) is one of the 31 provinces of Iran, located in the northeast of the country and southeast of the Caspian Sea. Its capital is Gorgan, formerly called Esterabad until 1937. Golestan was split off from Mazandaran province in 1997.
The province was made a part of Region 1 upon the division of the provinces into 5 regions, solely for coordination and development purposes, on 22 June 2014.[1] Majority of its population are Sunni Muslims.[6][7]
At the 2006 census, the province's population was 1,593,055 in 379,354 households.[8] The following census in 2011 showed an increase in population to 1,777,014 in 482,842 households.[9] At the most recent census conducted in 2016, the population had risen to 1,868,819 in 550,249 households.[3]
Etymology
Gulistan, Golestan, or Golastan translates to "gul-" meaning "flower" and "-stan" meaning "land" or "region." Golestan, therefore, literally means "land of flowers" in Iranian languages (e.g., Persian, Kurdish, and Mazandarani. This is a common toponym in countries with Persian linguistic roots (see Gulistan).
Map of the Abbasid Caliphate showing Gorgan province, forerunner to modern-day Golestan province
Human settlements in this area date back to 10,000 BC. Evidence of the ancient city of Jorjan can still be seen near the current city of Gonbad-e Kavus. It was an important city of Persia located on the Silk Road.
Under the Achaemenid Iran, it seems to have been administered as a sub-province of Parthia and is not named separately in the provincial lists of Darius and Xerxes. The Hyrcanians, however, under the leadership of Megapanus, are mentioned by Herodotus[11] in his list of Xerxes' army during the invasion of Greece.[10]
The Mazandaranis who inhabit the foothills to Shah Pasand were subsumed under the rubric "Persian" by these official statistics.
The Persians/Mazandaranis are considered by nearly all inhabitants of the province to be "the old natives" while all others are considered ethnic immigrants in the past.
Azeris and the Qizilbash predate the Turkmen by centuries and have in time become completely Shia, and therefore, culturally associated with the Persians and other Shias.
The Sistani Persians and the Baluch are relatively recent arrivals and date back to the early 20th century. They are still arriving in the area in some numbers due to the lasting drought in their home areas of Sistan.
The people of Kordkuy are originally from the Kurdish areas of west Iran, Kermanshah and Kurdistan provinces. They belong to the Kord-rostami tribe and are also found in significant numbers in other cities like Gorgan and Bandare Gaz. Subtribes of the Kord-Rostami tribe are the Aghili and Sepanlou tribes.
The world's tallest brick structure of its kind, the Gonbad-e Qabus tower, stands in this province.
Climate and geography
Golestan enjoys mild weather and a temperate climate most of the year. Geographically, it is divided into two sections: The plains, and the mountains of the Alborz range. In the eastern Alborz section, the direction of the mountains faces northeast and gradually decreases in height. The highest point of the province is Shavar, with a height of 3,945 meters. Two of the main rivers are the Gharasu and Gorganrud.
Golestan National Park in northern Iran is faced with the construction of a road through the forest, allegedly for the ease of traffic for the villagers and woodmen but at the expense of losing the only national park in Iran throughout which a range of different climates (humidity near the Caspian Sea and desert farther south) is spread.
Golestan National Park is Iran's biggest national park which spans three provinces, Golestan, Mazandaran, and North Khorasan. Surprisingly, the authorities ignore repeated calls by experts to construct such roads around, instead of through, the forests, which in this way would no longer threaten animal and plant life.
