Shushtar

In the Elamite times Shushtar was known as Adamdun. In the Achaemenian times its name was Šurkutir. According to tradition, Shushtar was founded by the legendary king Hushang after he built Susa (aka Shush), and the name "Shushtar" was a comparative form meaning "more beautiful than Shush". Shushtar may be the "Sostra" mentioned by Pliny the Elder. Ibn Battuta visited, noting "On both banks of the river, there are orchards and water-wheels, the river itself is deep and over it, leading to the travelers' gate, there is a bridge upon boats." The ancient fortress walls were destroyed at the end of the Safavid era. 1831 cholera epidemic In 1831, a cholera epidemic ravaged Shushtar, killing about half of the city's inhabitants. The Mandaean community was hit particularly hard during the Plague of Shushtar, as all of their priests had died in the plague. Yahya Bihram, the surviving son of a deceased priest, went on to revive the Mandaean priesthood in Shushtar. Late 1800s to present Shushtar benefited from the Karun steamship service established in 1887. When the Sassanian Shah Shapur I defeated the Roman emperor Valerian, he is said to have ordered the captive Roman soldiers to build a large bridge and dam stretching over 500 metres. Lying deep in Persian territory, the structure which exhibits typical Roman building techniques became the most eastern Roman bridge and Roman dam. Its dual-purpose design exerted a profound influence on Iranian civil engineering and was instrumental in developing Sassanid water management techniques. While the traditional account is disputable, it's not implausible that Roman prisoners of war were involved in its construction. and which has been designated World Heritage Site by the UNESCO in 2009. The arched superstructure carried across the important road between Pasargadae and the Sassanid capital Ctesiphon. Many times repaired in the Islamic period, the dam bridge fell out of use in the late 19th century, leading to the degeneration of the complex system of irrigation. == Registration of ancient works in UNESCO World Heritage ==

Ancient works of Shushtar, which were registered at the annual meeting of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee on 26 June 2009, under the title of Shushtar Historical Water System, as the tenth work of Iran in the UNESCO World Heritage List with number 1315. ==Demographics==

Ethnicity Historically, the Subbi Kush neighborhood of Shushtar was home to a Mandaean community for centuries, although Mandaeans no longer lived there by the 21st century due to emigration. The overwhelming majority of people of Shushtar are of a native hybrid race that there is no name to address them. Layard and Selby write about the people of Shushtar that most of the people of Shushtar are Sadati who wear large green turbans.Elsewhere, Lord Curzon says this about the people of Shushtar: They (the Shushtris) are a mixture of Persian and Arab descent and are considered a link between these two descents, and while the Arab gene seems to be stronger in them, it seems that they have acquired most of the lighter moral characteristics of both races. According to Henry Field, Shushtri are usually thought to be Assyrian, but their origin is mixed and they are called Shushtri. And in another place, she writes that the cities of Shushtar and Dezful have a population whose origin is unknown and they may be of the ancient Assyrian race who have mixed with Iranians. Language The majority of the cities' population are Persians who speak Shushtari, a dialect of the Persian language. The list of linguists has classified Shushtri-Dezfuli dialect independently from Persian. Population At the time of the 2006 National Census, the city's population was 94,124 in 21,511 households. The following census in 2011 counted 106,815 people in 26,639 households. The 2016 census measured the population of the city as 101,878 people in 28,373 households. == Culture ==

The devoutness of Shushtar's people has led to it being nicknamed "Dar al-Mu'minin". Local tradition attributes certain customs to ancient Roman colonists, as well as the construction of the Band-e Kaisar and the introduction of brocade manufacturing technique. ==Climate==

Shushtar has a hot semi-arid climate (Köppen climate classification BSh) with extremely hot summers and mild winters. Frost does occasionally occur at night during winter, but winters in Shushtar have no snow. Rainfall is higher than most of southern Iran, but is almost exclusively confined to the period from November to April. (records), (humidity), (precipitation), (sun) ==Notable people==

• Sayyed Bozorg Mahmoody, anesthesiologist accused of taking his American wife Betty and their daughter Mahtob to Iran and allegedly keeping them hostage • Mohammad Ali Mousavi Jazayeri, Twelver Shia cleric • Mohammad-Ali Emam-Shooshtari, historian and religious scholar • Sahl Shushtari, early classical Sufi mystic • Qazi Nurullah Shustari, eminent Shia faqih (jurist) and scholar • Nematollah Jazayeri, prominent Shia scholar • Mohammad-Taqi Shoushtari, Iranian Twelver Shia scholar • Sheikh Jafar Shooshtari, prominent Shia scholar == See also ==