TEHRAN – On Thursday, a World Heritage base dedicated to the UNESCO-designated Trans-Iranian Railway was launched in Iran’s Savadkuh county of Mazandaran province.

The inauguration ceremony was attended by Mazandaran’s tourism chief Hossein Izadi and several other provincial officials who unanimously said the historical railway has created a unique opportunity to develop tourism in Mazandaran province.

“It is not just a rail route for the transportation of goods and passengers, and it has unique and rare capacities to develop the tourism economy and attract foreign tourists to Mazandaran,” said Abolfazl Nikubayan, who presides over the base.

Addressing the ceremony, the officials also attached great importance to help safeguard the province’s unique cultural scenes for the next generations, saying Mazandaran’s unique rural texture, architecture, lifestyle, and agriculture a prominent examples of the integration of man into nature.

The Trans-Iranian Railway, which reaches a length of 1400 km, was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in July 2021 during the 44th session of the World Heritage Committee held in China’s Fuzhou.

The rail route starts at a point north of Torkaman port located southeast of the Caspian Sea. After going through Sari and Qaem-Shahr cities, it enters the mountainous region of Alborz through the high Firooz-kooh Pass, which is linked with Tehran and Varamin Plain by numerous bridges and tunnels. After crossing the flatlands of Qom and Arak, it penetrates the Zagros highlands in Lorestan Province and passing through a large number of tunnels and bridges reaches Andimeshk situated in the low Kuzestan plain. Finally, extending to the vicinity of Dezful, Ahwaz, and its grand bridge on Karoon, the Trans-Iranian Railway is divided into two branches ending separately at Khoram-Shahr and Imam-Khomeini ports on the Persian Gulf.

Sandwiched between the towering Alborz mountain range and the Caspian Sea, the picture-perfect province has long been a highly popular destination for domestic travelers.

AFM