Tabriz sits in a broad valley in Iran's northwest, ringed by mountains and close to the Turkish border. It is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the Middle East, and it feels it — this is a place with layers. Once a capital of the Persian and Safavid empires, Tabriz was a major stop on Silk Road trade routes, and its enormous covered bazaar remains the commercial heart of the city.
Today Tabriz is home to about 1.5 million people, most of them Azeri Turks — Iran's largest ethnic minority. You'll hear Azerbaijani spoken as often as Farsi on the streets. The city has an industrial character but rewards anyone who takes the time to look: the bazaar alone is worth a full day, and several remarkable mosques — among them the Blue Mosque and the ruined Ali Shah Mosque — survive from the city's medieval peak.
The surrounding region has its own draws. Lake Urmia, about 60 km to the west, is a vast salt lake with striking pink-hued water and medicinal mud. The nearby city of Ardabil contains the Shaikh Safi ud-Din tomb complex, a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of the finest examples of Safavid architecture in Iran.
Tabriz is about 750 km northwest of Tehran by road, or roughly 90 minutes by air.