Astarābād

Astarabad stands at the foot of the Alborz near the southeastern corner of the Caspian Sea. Its district forms a transition between the humid lands of Mazandaran and the drier Gorgan steppes. In early Islamic times the town was overshadowed by Gorgan, farther northeast, but after the Mongol invasions Astarabad became the foremost town of the region. The Caspian port of Abaskun had served it in the medieval period.

In 1510–11 Shah Ismail I drove an Uzbek governor from Astarabad during his campaign in Khorasan. Safavid princes subsequently governed the province, while Turkmen groups gained a growing presence along its eastern frontier. By the end of the seventeenth century the town was a principal centre of the Qajar tribe. In the troubled decades after the Safavid collapse it became a base for their rise, and Agha Mohammad Khan, the future founder of the Qajar dynasty, was born there.