Sanandaj, city in western Iran, and capital of Kordestan (or Kurdistan) province. Sanandaj occupies a fertile valley in the Zagros Mountains. The city is a major manufacturing and retail trade center with many diverse products, including carpets, cotton textiles, leather, metalware, cutlery, pottery, wood furniture and wood crafts, milled rice, refined sugar, and processed foods. Its old bazaar is noted as a place to buy Kurdish handicrafts. Sanandaj is on the main highway between Tabriz and Kermanshah (Bakhtaran); a highway running east from Sanandaj connects it to Tehran via Hamadan. The city also has an airport. Sanandaj is home to the ruins of an 11th- and 12th- century fortress, the Dar al-Ehsan Mosque, and the Sanandaj Museum. The museum is housed in a 19th-century royal palace whose Arusi Room, or Wedding Room, is considered a masterpiece of handcrafted woodwork. Kurdistan University, founded after the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, is also in the city. The area around Sanandaj is known for its many mountain caves, hot springs, and freshwater lakes, many of which cater to tourists.
Sanandaj is an ancient city, in existence when the Achaemenid Empire was established by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. It was known as Sisar to the Arab geographers of the 7th through 10th centuries AD, and as Senna or Sinneh after the 10th century. For several centuries it was the capital of the semiautonomous Kurdish principality of Ardelan. The city acquired its present name in the early 20th century. Sanandaj was a center of resistance to both the monarchy during the 1979 revolution and the republican government that followed. It was bombed by Iraq several times during the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988). Sanandaj began to develop as a manufacturing center in the early 1970s. Its population has more than doubled since 1976. Population (1996) 277,808.
