TEHRAN – The tourism infrastructure of the natural spa region in Dehloran, the western province of Ilam is planned to be developed, the provincial tourism chief has said. 

A budget of five billion rials (about $120,000 at the official exchange rate of 42,000 rials per dollar) has been allocated to the project, Abdolmalek Shanbehzadeh announced on Saturday. 

With numerous hot mineral springs, this region could become a tourism hub in the country, the official added. 

Organizing, flooring, and lightening have been carried out so far in the area in close collaboration with the private sector, he explained. 

The Dehloran plain is best known for the excavations conducted at several prehistoric sites, which elucidated the origins and development of sedentary agricultural villages and towns in the region, and for surveys documenting the history of settlement into the modern era. 

As a relatively small and remote rural area, it has always been affected by political, economic, and technological developments in the adjacent regions of Khuzestan, the Zagros Mountains, and Mesopotamia. Beginning as early as the 3rd millennium BC and throughout its subsequent history, it was under the political control of kingdoms in one or another of these regions according to Iranica Encyclopedia.

Although no cuneiform texts have been found at any of the Dehloran sites, the most prominent mound, Tepe Musiyan, is possible to be identified as ancient Urua, an Elamite city known from Mesopotamian texts.

Dehloran has been on a trade route linking the Zagros Mountains with Mesopotamia; in the 1st millennium, the route linking the Achaemenid capitals of Susa and Ecbatana passed through the region.

From the 18th century, Dehloran has been a winter resort for the local tribes.

ABU/AFM