Tehran Shemiran Rey Demavand Karaj and Environs.

Description

This scarce and exciting folding map of the Iranian capital and its surroundings was produced and published by the Sahab Geographic & Drafting Institute (Sahab / مؤسسه جغرافیائی سحاب) in 1960. It is a medium-scale combined topographic and road map. The sheet covers the greater Tehran area and neighboring districts, including  Shemiran (the high northern suburbs), Rey (to the south-east), the high massif of Damavand (Mt. Damāvand and environs) to the northeast, and Karaj to the west. To its fullest extent, it stretches north to include the Elburz (Alborz) Mountains, including its highest peak at Mt Demavand; and south to include the massive central plains of the Iranian Plateau (دشت تهران / Dasht-e Tehran).

Superimposed on this dramatic natural landscape are man-made features, including numerous settlements of varying sizes, communication systems such as telegraph and phone lines, and the country’s emerging transport infrastructure, which included modernized road networks and the Iranian State Railway lines. The emphasis on mobility is particularly noticeable in the delineation of roads leading from Tehran to places like Mazandaran in the north or Khorasan in the east. This allows the folding map to double as a transport atlas before the age of Iran’s freeways.

Tehran itself is shown with dense toponymy and a hatched orthogonality that one implicitly associates with large cities. The map also uses other conventional devices, such as border ticks, scale bars, and marginal framing, all at a scale of about 1:120,000. Relief is shown through a combination of contour lines, elevation points, and shaded hachures, with the Elburz Mountains, river valleys, and the slopes around Mt. Damāvand highlighted by the makers. The topography is particularly significant around Tehran, where altitude fluctuations are substantial. The elaborate combination of contours, shading, and printed elevation points is all meant provide potential visitors with an accurate sense of the dramatic landscape.

A final note should be on the depicted hydrographic infrastructure. Water control has always been a top priority in Persia, and for millennia, Persian hydrological technology was the best in the world. On the map, both perennial and seasonal rivers are shown alongside ancient irrigation systems such as the qanat (enormous subterranean irrigation canals).

The map’s combination of topography, infrastructure, and dense toponymy suggests the map was made for practical purposes, such as regional planning, tourism, and educational use. The late 1950s and 1960s were a period of rapid modernization in Iran, marked by urban growth around Tehran, the expansion of road and rail networks, and a growing demand for printed geographic materials. Sahab’s position as the principal private publisher enabled the institute to supply both Farsi- and bilingual-language map products to domestic and international users. Abbas Sahab and his institute continued to issue new editions and related cartographic works throughout the 1960s and 1970s, including several new editions of this particular map.

Census

Surviving copies and bibliographic records show that The Sahab Institute issued multiple editions and printings of essentially the same composition throughout the 1960s and 1970s. There is no definitive overview of the editions issued, and we have identified a number of distinct examples. Neatline’s example is nevertheless particularly attractive in that it was endowed with a printed statement reading “چاپ اول اسفند ماه ۱۳۳۸” (first printing, Esfand 1338). As Esfand is the twelfth month of the Iranian year 1338 (Solar Hijri), its publication can be dated to late February–March 1960 in the Gregorian calendar. This makes it the earliest identifiable edition and, in all likelihood, the first state of this particular map.

Bibliographic and institutional catalogue records show later Sahab printings and cataloguing of essentially the same sheet during the 1960s and again in the 1970s. A catalogued imprint at the National Library of Australia records a 1976 Sahab printing of Map of Tehran and Environs (Map no. 290), which indicates the sheet was reissued in several states across the 1960s–1970s. Dealer descriptions will often tentatively provide a “circa 1960” date, referencing the original year of the map’s production rather than the year of their specific edition.

Neatline’s example is the original first state, printed in February 1960.