The Most Beautiful Places in Fars
8 places · updated 14 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful places in Fars are Tomb of Cyrus the Great, Pasargadae and Persepolis. The list covers 8 places. Last updated 14 October 2026.
Fars is the province that gave Persia its name, and it was the homeland of two of the great dynasties of the ancient world. The Achaemenid kings built their ceremonial capitals here in the sixth and fifth centuries BC, and the Sasanians, rising from the same region centuries later, carved their victories into the same cliffs. Its capital, Shiraz, became a city of poets and gardens, and in the eighteenth century briefly the capital of Iran under the Zand dynasty, which left it a fine set of mosques and bazaars.
At Pasargadae, the simple stepped stone Tomb of Cyrus the Great has stood on the plain for some two and a half thousand years. Persepolis, begun under Darius I, is a vast terrace of columned halls and staircases lined with reliefs of delegations bringing tribute from across the empire. Nearby, Naqsh-e Rustam shows four rock-cut royal tombs high in a cliff face, with Sasanian reliefs carved beneath them.
Shiraz offers the other side of Persian art. The Nasir-ol-Molk Mosque, built in the Qajar era, is known for the coloured glass windows that fill its prayer hall with patterned morning light and for its pink-toned tiles. The Vakil Mosque, built for Karim Khan Zand, has a prayer hall of spiral-carved stone columns, and the Shah Cheragh shrine is lined inside with countless fragments of mirror mosaic.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tomb of Cyrus the Great | Mausoleum | |
| 2 | Pasargadae | Archaeological site | ✓ |
| 3 | Persepolis | Archaeological site | ✓ |
| 4 | Naqsh-e Rustam | Necropolis | |
| 5 | Shah Cheragh shrine | Mosque | |
| 6 | Nasir-ol-Molk Mosque | Mosque | |
| 7 | Bishapur | Archaeological site | ✓ |
| 8 | Vakil Mosque | Mosque |
01 Tomb of Cyrus the Great
Iran30.194° N 53.167° E
Diego Delso · CC BY-SA 4.0 On the open plain of Pasargadae, the first capital of the Achaemenid Empire, stands a small stone house on a stepped plinth — the tomb of Cyrus the Great, founder of the Persian Empire.
Did you know? When James Morier visited in the early 19th century, local custom kept the key with women, and only women were permitted to enter.
02 Pasargadae
Iran30.200° N 53.179° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by pv746 from Pixabay Pasargadae is where the Persian Empire began to think of itself in stone. Cyrus the Great founded it in the 6th century BC, close to the field where he defeated the Median king Astyages in 550 BC, and named it after his own clan.
03 Persepolis
Iran · 16.2 km from Marvdasht29.935° N 52.890° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
SEYED MOHAMAD AHMADI · CC BY-SA 4.0 Persepolis, known in Persian as Takht-e Jamshid, the Throne of Jamshid, was the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Darius I began it around 515 BC on a vast terrace of grey limestone, looking out over the plain of Marvdasht in Fars.
Did you know? The great terrace covers about 125,000 square metres, roughly 450 by 300 metres, partly cut from the mountain and partly built up.
04 Naqsh-e Rustam
Iran · 21.4 km from Marvdasht29.989° N 52.875° E
Stefan Krasowski from New York, NY, USA · CC BY 2.0 Naqsh-e Rustam is a cliff face north-west of Persepolis in Fars province where the kings of Persia carved their tombs and their victories over more than a thousand years. High in the rock are four identical tombs of Achaemenid kings.
Did you know? Besides the captive Valerian, Shapur I's triumph relief is thought to show a second Roman emperor, Philip the Arab.
05 Shah Cheragh shrine
Iran · 3.4 km from Shiraz29.610° N 52.543° E
Mohamed sadegh golbadi · CC BY-SA 4.0 From the outside Shah Cheragh is a handsome Persian shrine: a bulbous dome with calligraphy circling its drum, a columned portico flanked by two short minarets, and a broad courtyard in the centre of Shiraz. Nothing quite prepares you for the inside.
Did you know? Besides the mosque, Tashi Khatun built a theological college beside the shrine and a tomb for herself nearby.
06 Nasir-ol-Molk Mosque
Iran · 3.2 km from Shiraz29.609° N 52.548° E
Image by engelbachm from Pixabay The Nasir-ol-Molk Mosque in Shiraz is a building made for one hour of the day. Early in the morning the low sun comes through the stained-glass windows of its winter prayer hall and throws pools of red, blue, yellow and green across the Persian carpets, the columns and the people sitting in the light.
Did you know? Over the main door a marble panel carries a poem by the Shiraz poet Shurideh, recording the founder and the year the mosque was finished.
07 Bishapur
Iran29.778° N 51.571° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Herbert karim masihi · CC BY-SA 4.0 Bishapur is the city a Persian king of kings built to celebrate beating Rome. Shapur I, the second ruler of the Sasanian dynasty, defeated three Roman emperors in his long reign, and the last of them, Valerian, was taken prisoner in 260.
Did you know? Six Sasanian rock reliefs line the Tang-e Chogan gorge beside the city, celebrating Shapur's victories over Rome.
08 Vakil Mosque
Iran · 3 km from Shiraz29.614° N 52.545° E
Image by mostafa_meraji from Pixabay Step from the courtyard of the Vakil Mosque into its winter prayer hall and the eye is caught by a forest of stone: forty-eight monolithic columns, each carved with spiral fluting and topped by a capital of acanthus leaves, holding up the vaulted roof.
Did you know? Besides the main courtyard of about 65 by 60 metres, the mosque has a second, smaller yard measuring roughly 35 by 20 metres.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most beautiful places in Fars?
- On our list, Tomb of Cyrus the Great ranks first, followed by Pasargadae and Persepolis.
- Who built Persepolis?
- Persepolis was founded by the Achaemenid king Darius I around 518 BC and expanded by his successors, including Xerxes. It was burned in 330 BC after its capture by Alexander the Great.
- Whose tombs are at Naqsh-e Rustam?
- The four cross-shaped tombs cut into the cliff at Naqsh-e Rustam are attributed to Achaemenid kings, including Darius I, whose tomb is identified by its inscription. Below them are later Sasanian rock reliefs.
- Why is Nasir-ol-Molk called the Pink Mosque?
- The mosque's tilework uses an unusual amount of pink and rose tones, and in the morning sunlight passing through its stained glass windows casts coloured patterns across the carpets and columns of the prayer hall.
- What kinds of places are there to see in Fars?
- In our collection, the places in Fars are most often mosques (3), archaeological sites (3), mausoleums (1) and necropolises (1).
- How many places are on this list in Fars?
- The list covers 8 places.