Āndīmeshḵ

Andimeshk lies in Khuzestan province, about thirty-four kilometres north of Shush. The city stands on routes between the Mesopotamian plain and the Zagros passes, a position that made movement through southwestern Iran central to its history.

Ancient records give the locality a much older horizon. The name appears in cuneiform tablets from the Ur III period, dating to about 2000 BC, as Adamshakh. Later forms include Andamaska and Andimaska. Routes from the place led toward Elam, Anshan and Lorestan, making it strategically significant into the late Sasanian era. Armies, envoys and caravans crossing the lowland–mountain frontier depended on wells and settlements spaced along the road.

The surrounding economy combined irrigated grain, dates and livestock with movement along the river plain. Fords across the Dez and Karkheh river systems shaped which settlements prospered, while mountain pastoralists brought wool, dairy goods and animals to lowland markets. Andimeshk's identity therefore rests on a long crossing point between Khuzestan, Luristan and the Mesopotamian interior.