An Overview on the basis of Urban Planning and Social Life of Safavid Cities

In the Safavid era, cities played a decisive role in the activities of urban social life, especially with regard to commodity, distribution and exchanging system between urban and rural society as well as defining the role of organizations in the commercial process. This paper is based on historical analyzing method where the authors could utilize primary sources to study social and economic states of urban life in Persian cities during Safavid. Farah Abad, Isfahan and Bandar Abbas in North, Center and South of Iran have been examined. These cities were selected considering their functional nature as producer, industrial (processor) and exporter centers.
The outcome of the study shows that the cities founded and developed during Safavid, specially on Silk Road, during the reign of Shah Abbas I (996-1038 AH), played the role of producer, distributer and exporter in north, center and south of Iran. Based on their functional capacities, cities of that era are divided into three types: producer of raw materials, intermediary and processing, and finally exporter (port) cities. The analysis of economic relations of those cities indicates that the king had despotic monopolization of all aspects of the cities where the urban economy deeply on agricultural economy of countryside.