The degree of adaptation of the main structure of Mashhad city with the pilgrims  mental image

One of the important principles of Iranian-Islamic cities is the cohesion and unity in the city structure. The past cities of Iran had a main structure which encompassed the main elements and performances of the city and was continuing at the districts levels in hierarchical form. In addition to the increase of readability and giving identity to the city and district، it used to give an effective and coherent form to the cities. The researches made by thinkers such as Linch shows that using the mental image of the city structure، humans deal with finding the direction and route. So، it is necessary that in the urban plans، attention to be paid to the mental image of the users of the city، so that the efficiency of the main structure could be reinforced to back up the behavioral models (movement) among the inhabitants. As according to the formal statistics، annually about 17 million of passengers enter into Mashhad and about 3 millions people are inhabiting in this city. The management of the behavioral models of inhabitants and pilgrims to remove the problems of this city is inevitable. It seems that the basic structure of Mahshad and the mental structure dominating over the users of this space are not compatible with each other. This is the main factor accounting for the urban problems including traffic in Mashhad. In order to prove this hypothesis، this research has dealt with the study of the degree of adaptation of the basic structure of Mashhad city and the mental structure of the inhabitants and pilgrims in Mashahad through the methods of space arrangement analysis methods. Analyses show that the mental map of the inhabitants and pilgrims of Mashhad does not have a common points with the main structure designed for this city with the exception of a few points. This subject can be one of the main causes of traffic problems in Mashhad city. This point makes necessary further notice to the mental image of people in the future plans for Mashhad city.