The Determining Elements of ‘City Center’ and the Related Urban Changes in the Central Area of ‘Gorgan City

The historical monuents and remained travelouges proves the long history of Gorgan city. The urban core of the current city is formed around the three neighborhoods of ‘Maydan’, ‘Nalbandan’ and ‘Sarcheshmeh’, t gradually new areas have been created around them. The lined-street during the reign of Rezakhan, separated the historical context of the city in two parts and the urban physical growth around the new streets started to begin. The central area, which has  always had a key role in citizens’ social actions and  corresponded their needs, has been affected by these changes over time.Relying on the field observations and library studies, this study  assumes that the current city center of Gorgan, that in someway represents an urban landscape, is changing in the mind of citizens and the urban identity.  A landscape is an ‘objective-subjective’ phenomenon, a general whole, that is composed of body and soul or physical body and meaning.As a result, to find the concept of ‘city center’ as a landscape, it is required to pay attention to its objective-subjective implications. To find the form and extent of this change, relying on available sources and field semiotics, we identified some effective elements in  turninga place into a center, including the urban tangible (objective) and intangible (mental/subjective) elements. By performing field study, the result showed that the collected data were in line with the effective elements of centrality.