Investigating and Prioritizing the Centrality (political) of Qajar Period Castle Settlements in Sistan Region of Iran Using the ANP Model

Investigating and prioritizing the centrality (political) of the Qajar fortified settlements areas in Sistan region of Iran requires studying effective environmental factors (natural and human) using appropriate methods, techniques and models. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate and prioritize existing criteria and indicators to determine the centrality of these settlements (9 cases) using the Analytic Network Process (ANP) model. In this regard, the research question is: Which castle settlement in the Qajar period played a more central political role in Sistan? The methodology used in this research is descriptive-analytical and comparative-historical and based on documentary (library) studies and field surveys. ArcGIS and Super Decisions software were used for data analysis. The results show that the highest priority rating in all castle settlements belongs to the "Sekuheh" option with a score of (0.233). Of the criteria “natural environmental factors” the option “relative slope against flood” (0.388) ranked first and the option “access to the hydrographic network of Hirmand” (0.217) gained the second rank and highest scores in this criterion group. Besides, gaining the top score in the option “the extent of castle settlement” (0.473), the criterion “human environmental factors” ranked top.