Salmas

Salmas is a city in the Central District of Salmas County, West Azerbaijan province, Iran, serving as capital of both the county and the district. It is northwest of Lake Urmia, near Turkey.

Etymology
The original name of Salmas was Dilman, which is probably related to the Daylamites who sometimes controlled the region. In the 20th-century, it was known as Shapur.

History
Salmas is located in the historic Azerbaijan region. Its archaeological relics, which date as far back as the Urartian kingdom (860 BC–590 BC), attest to its long human habitation. Salmas was part of the Armenian province of Nor Shirakan (also known as Persarmenia), which was inhabited by Armenians. A rock relief erected during the reign of the Sasanian monarch Ardashir I ((r. 224 – 242)) is located in the Khan-Takhti village near Salmas. This rock relief illustrates two akin scenarios in which a standing man receives a ring from a man riding a horse.

The standing men's names are subject to interpretation, but the horsemen are typically considered to be Ardashir I and his son and heir, Shapur I. The German orientalist Ferdinand Justi (died 1907) theorized that the relief is meant to show the Armenians' gratitude to Ardashir I and Shapur I, something which some later scholars supported. The Iranologist Ehsan Shavarebi considers this theory to be "logical" but stresses that "we need more investigations on the event depicted on the relief." He suggests that the rock relief is meant to illustrate the probable peace made between Ardashir I and the Kingdom of Armenia. When the Arsacid house of Armenia was abolished and the country was made a Sasanian province in 428, Nor Shirakan and Paytakaran were incorporated into the Sasanian province of Adurbadagan.

Two archeological sites showing inhabitation during the Sasanian era has been found near Salmas. One of them is known as Haftan Tepe, which contains Sasanian-era pottery akin to those found in Takht-e Soleyman. The other is called Qazun Basi, located to the south of Salmas. They were likely used as military and administrative hubs. The 9th-century Muslim historian al-Baladhuri reported that the taxes of Salmas had been long given to Mosul, suggesting that during the Arab conquest of Iran it was Arab armies from Diyar Rabi'a that conquered Salmas. During the reign of Marzuban ibn Muhammad ((r. 941/42 – 957)) of the Daylamite Sallarid dynasty, Salmas became subjugated to his rule. In 943/44, Marzuban ibn Muhammad repelled an attack on Salmas by the Hamdanid dynasty, and in 955/56, it was attacked by the Kurdish military leader Daysam. By 975, Salmas was seemingly under the rule of the Kurdish Rawadid dynasty, who after 983/84 ruled all of Azerbaijan.

Salmas is described by the 10th-century Islamic geographers Ibn Hawkal and al-Istakhri as a tiny town in Azerbaijan with a sturdy wall in a fertile location. Another 10th-century Islamic geographer, al-Maqdisi, considers the town to have been part of the administration of Armenia and inhabited by Kurds, which according to the modern scholar and orientalist Clifford Edmund Bosworth must had been part of the Hadhabani tribe. In 1054/55, the Seljuk Empire imposed their rule on the Rawwadids, and in 1070 removed them from power resulting in Salmas being captured by the Seljuks. In 1064, the Seljuk sultan Alp Arslan ((r. 1063 – 1072)) made a military campaign against the Byzantines, Armenians and Georgians, in which the Kurds of Salmas took part.

Salmas was in ruins during the lifetime of the Muslim scholar Yaqut al-Hamawi (died 1229), but according to the geographer Hamdallah Mustawfi (died after 1339/40), it was once again thriving in the middle of the 14th-century. The vizier Khwaja Taj al-Din Ali Shah Tabrizi had rebuilt the town's 8,000-steps long wall during the reign of Ilkhanate ruler Ghazan ((r. 1295 – 1304)), and Salmas's revenues—presumably those of the entire district—amounted to 39,000 dinars, a large amount.

Another mention of the city was made in 1281, when its Assyrian bishop made the trip to the consecration of the Assyrian Church of the East patriarch Yaballaha in Baghdad.

In the Battle of Salmas on 17–18 September 1429, the Kara Koyunlu were defeated by Shah Rukh who was consolidating Timurid holdings west of Lake Urmia. However, the area was retaken by the Kara Koyunlu in 1447 after the death of Shah Rukh.

In March 1915 Cevdet Bey ordered 800 Assyrians of Salmas to be killed.  Mar Shimun, the Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East was murdered by the Kurdish chieftain Simko Shikak in Salmas in March 1918.

Around the advent of the 1910s, Imperial Russia started to station infantry and Cossacks in Salmas. The Russians retreated at the time of Enver Pasha's offensive in the Iran-Caucasus region, but returned in early 1916, and stayed up to the wake of the Russian Revolution.

Language and ethnicity
The majority of the population is composed of Azerbaijanis and Kurds with some Armenians, Assyrians, and Jews.

Population
At the time of the 2006 National Census, the city's population was 79,560 in 19,806 households. The following census in 2011 counted 88,196 people in 23,751 households. The 2016 census measured the population of the city as 92,811 people in 27,115 households. According to the 2019 census, the city's population is 127,864.

Salmas in early atlases
The atlases below are some of the earliest maps to have been ever sketched to show the territory and originality of the name of Salmas and are some of the strongest documents providing proofs to some basic facts about the city including its existence and identity.

Climate
Under the Köppen climate classification, Salmas features a cold semi-arid climate (BSk), typical of northwestern Iran.

Notable people

 * Stepanos V of Salmast (d. 1567) – Catholicos of the Armenian Apostolic Church
 * Yohannan Gabriel (1758–1833) – Chaldean Catholic bishop of Salmas
 * Nicholas I Zaya (d. 1855) – Patriarch of Babylon of the Chaldeans
 * Raffi (1835–1888) – Armenian novelist
 * Paul Bedjan (1838–1920) – Chaldean Catholic priest and orientalist
 * Abraham Guloyan (1893–1983) – Politician
 * Murad Kostanyan (1902–1989) – Actor
 * Hossein Sadaghiani (1903-1982) - The first ever manager and head coach of Iran national football team (1941-1951) and the first ever Iranian soccer player to play for foreign clubs (R. Charleroi S.C. and Fenerbahce SK) and in a European league
 * Ardeshir Ovanessian (c. 1905–1990) – Communist leader
 * Timur Lakestani (1915–2011) – aka Father of Iranian Electrical Industry
 * Jafar Salmasi (1918–2000) – weightlifter
 * Emmanuel Agassi (1930–2021) – boxer and father of Andre Agassi
 * Hadi Asghari (b. 1981) – football player