Sistan and its National and International Honors

Sistan is located in the east of Iran. Given its particular geographical location, specific climatic conditions, and particular political status, this province has enjoyed great strategic significance since ancient times. It is also located at a junction with the fertile and rich Indian subcontinent. Sistan is the land of national myths, the birthplace of epic, the origin of the first advanced human civilizations, the center of urban communities, and the bridge connecting West Asia with Indo-China and the passage way of commercial caravans. During the Achaemenid period, at the time of Darius the Great, Ptolemy referred to the name of AryaPolis for Sistan, which indicates that Sistan was one of the large centers housing a great number of people from the Aryan ethnic origin.The writer of History of Sistan considers its people to be of a beautiful and supreme ancestral race and refers to them as a group of hard-working, powerful, tall, and healthy people. Since its residents began cattle raising and farming, different kinds of art emerged in Sistan and greatly contributed to the formation of the lifestyle of the people living in different regions of this land. The artists and craftsmen of Sistan have created a number of marvelous works and masterpieces which are now ornamenting various art centers of the world. Some of them have also been chosen as symbols in other countries, for example, the windmill of Sistan is presently the symbol of Netherlands.