Marīvān

Marivan lies in the Kurdish mountains near Lake Zeribar, a freshwater lake surrounded by reed beds and wooded hills. A fortress above the plain formed one of the strongholds of the Ardalan rulers, whose authority rested on a network of castles in the western Zagros. The lake and its marshy margins stand in a landscape of steep valleys and mountain settlements.

Marivan appears in the historical record alongside the rise of the Ardalan family in the thirteenth century. The family's fortresses helped its chiefs navigate rivalry between the Ottoman and Safavid states in the sixteenth century. The strongholds were eventually abandoned or deliberately destroyed between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries as Ardalan autonomy diminished. Marivan's history reflects the fortunes of a Kurdish ruling house situated between two powerful neighbours.