TABRIZ, chief town of the province of Azerbaijan and second largest city of Persia, lies in the valley of the Azi Chai (the Bitter river which flows into Lake Urmia) at an elevation of 4,400 ft., in 38° 4' N., 46° 18' E., and 32o m. N.W. of Tehran. Over looking the valley on the south rises the volcanic cone of Sahand (12,000 feet). There is little of striking character to be seen ex cept the bazaars and the Qabud Masjid, or Blue Mosque, with its stately facade of blue faience, close to the gate leading to the Tehran road. The Ark, or Castle, a lofty structure dating from the middle ages, is a ruin. Two gates are memorials from 1882, when the Kurds under Shaikh Ubaid Allah attacked Tabriz and conquered Urmia. For the rest, the city consists of an intermi nable collection of yellowish-grey, uniform houses intersected by a labyrinth of crooked and narrow lanes, but, since the new regime in Persia, some streets have been widened. On the outskirts are beautiful gardens and the more modern country houses of the wealthy classes. The maximum summer temperature is ioo° in August, and the minimum 6° ; rainfall about 9 in.
Tabriz was for a long period the great emporium of European trade with Persia, situated as it was on the main route from Trebizond and Erzerum ; but since the opening of the Suez Canal it has lost some of its activity. The difficulty and insecurity of the Trebizond-Tabriz roads and the recent rehabilitation of the `Iraq have still further diverted much commerce by way of Baghdad. It is nevertheless a principal trade centre and point of local distribution and collection for N.W. Persia. The railway from Tabriz to Julfa (8o m.), built by the Russians in 1916 and transferred to Persia in 1921, connects with the Caucasian system. Tabriz is the centre of the dried fruit industry of Azerbaijan, as well as the headquarters of an important rug industry. A match
factory was working in 1927. There is a branch of the Imperial Bank of Persia and a local telephone service. The chief imports were textiles, sugar and tea.
Tabriz (ancient Tauris) was probably an old city when it became the capital of Tiridates III., king of Armenia, in A.D. 297.
In 858, in the reign of the tenth Abbasid Caliph, it was almost de stroyed by earthquake, and again in 1041. In 1392, Timur took and sacked the city and, later, it fell under the sway of certain Turkman princes, from whom, in s500, Ismail, first of the Safavis, took it ; but it remained under Persia only till 1522 and then fell under Turkish rule. In 1618 Shah Abbas I. won it back to Persia. In 1721 the town was again in great part destroyed by earth quake and again passed, after a sanguinary struggle, under the Turks who held it until 1730, when it was retaken by Nadir Shah. Tabriz remained under the Persians until it was taken by the Russians in 1827, to be restored to Persia in 1828. Since 1905 it has been the capital of the heir-apparent. In 1908, the revolution against the Shah started at Tabriz and the arrival of Russian troops in 5909—nominally to save Russian subjects from famine —marked the commencement of a Russian occupation of this as well as other Persian towns. Tabriz became involved in the World War owing to Turko-Russian conflicts and was occupied by the Russians in 1915 and again by the Turks for a short period in 1918. These alternate occupations thoroughly disorganized the civil administration and economical conditions of the province of Azerbaijan from which, in 1928, it had scarcely recovered.