Importance and Role of Capital city in Intellectual and Executive Structure of Karim Khan-e Zand

As a political، economic، executive and sometimes cultural and social center of a country، Capital city is the main part of political and executive geography of every government. Every dynasty determines a place to be its capital and in a country like Iran any change in the location of this capital city had been of the great importance. Since capital city is the symbol of power، dignity and magnificence of a government، it should be located based on a well defined pattern، and its architecture and renovation must be in way that shows its privilege over other cities from the defense، economic and ornamentation viewpoint in national and international scenes. It seems that there are some special reasons behind the decision of Karim Khan in choosing Shiraz for his seat of government. He also tried to improve Shiraz’s status. This paper is to present an analytical discussion of the factors having affected this decision through raising such questions as: why Shiraz was chosen by Karim Khan as his capital city? And what type of pattern was considered in the process of this selection? Findings show that factors such as centralization، renovation of urban structure، economic improvement according to traditional patterns and Shiraz’s importance and historical background were influential in this process and putting the city as a seat for government. Also، Shiraz has got more prosperity due to population movements.