Karaj

Karaj is the capital of Alborz province in northern Iran, at the foot of the Alborz Mountains west of Tehran. The Karaj River flows out of the mountains past the city, and the Chalus Road climbs from it over the range to the Caspian Sea. The city grew with migrants from many provinces of Iran during the 20th century.

Karaj was a stop on the caravan road from Tehran to Qazvin, and a caravanserai built in the Safavid era still stands in the old center. Fath-Ali Shah of the Qajar dynasty built the Soleimanieh Palace in the town in the early 19th century, with wall paintings of court scenes. The Amir Kabir Dam, finished in 1961 in the gorge above the city, stores water for Tehran and generates electricity. Karaj grew quickly with factories and housing in the second half of the 20th century, and in 2010 it became the capital of the new province of Alborz.

The Seed and Plant Improvement Institute, based in Karaj, breeds new varieties of wheat, barley and other crops for Iranian farms. The College of Agriculture of the University of Tehran, one of the oldest agricultural schools of Iran, has its campus in the city.

The Morvarid Palace, a curving modern house built in the 1960s for Princess Shams Pahlavi, was designed by architects of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, with a spiral plan and a dome shaped like a sea shell. A stone bridge of the Safavid era crosses the river near the old caravanserai and is still used by people on foot. Villages in the valleys north of the city grow walnuts, cherries and apples on terraced orchards beside the mountain road.