Geographical and Cultural Effects on Forming Ismaeili Castles Case report; Kouh Zardan Castle-Zirkouh City

To balance the needs and actual or potential facilities, mankind has tried along with time. Water, ground, soil, road is from environmental factors forming a living place while one or more factors may play more important role depending on some situations. The culture is created due to people interactions and is progressing longitudinally and affects human activities. Ignoring the environment makes the debate impossible on cultural and behavioral conditions. Culture creates sites and phenomena around the spaces and places. Architecture is one of the main sites of culture in environment. Natural characteristics in the region of Ghahestan made the Ismailia – in the Islamic middle centuries - to establish defensive buildings due to cultural and religious conditions. The results made them to be in accordance with the political and natural conditions of the time. In spite of some environmental limitations, they provided their need in the environment and caused some sort of cultural and environmental accordance in the region. This study introduces the Kouh Zardan castle of Zirkouh city in South Khorasan. This castle has spent two different residence eras. The castle was used as a defensive place at the first era may be known as Saljooghi. Ilkhani’s were the second residents.The main question of the research is, what role has the natural geography of the area played in the castle of Castle Zardan Mountain architecture? The castle of Zardan Mountain has been built with regard to the environmental conditions of the area and the impact of the environment in the castle architecture space is not only in the use of native materials, but other factors such as climate, altitude, distance and proximity to water resources, geological structure and ... has played a key role in the formation of the castle. This paper is descriptive and analytical and its data has been through library resources and field surveys.