Survey and ranking of the development of the agricultural sector (Case study: the border townships of The West Azerbaijan province)

What is perceived as a fundamental gap in Iran's agricultural development and following it in West Azerbaijan province is a lack of recognition and awareness of the potential of border areas in agriculture, which requires special attention. The main goal of this research is to investigate the role of the agricultural sector in the development of border towns in West Azerbaijan Province. The criteria that have been evaluated in this research include the area under cultivation of crops, the production of crops, the area under cultivation of garden crops, the production of garden crops, and the area under cultivation of greenhouse crops. The research data was collected from the statistical yearbook of the Statistics Center in 2019. The analysis of the collected data has been carried out quantitatively and through the VIKOR decision-making model, and finally, using GIS software, the stratification of the cities of West Azerbaijan province was displayed for the spatial analysis of agricultural development in the province. The results of this research show that based on the ranking of the border cities of West Azerbaijan province, Urmia City is in first place, Salmas City is in second place, Piranshahr is in third place, Khoi is in fourth place, Oshnavieh is in the fifth place, Sardasht is ranked sixth, Chalderan is ranked seventh, and Mako is ranked eighth. The status of leveling and clustering of the development of the agricultural sector of the border counties of West Azerbaijan province shows that Urmia city is in developed clustering, Salmas city is in semi-developed clustering, Piranshahr and Khoi cities are in relatively deprived clustering, and finally, Oshnavieh, Sardasht, Chalderan and Mako cities are in the deprived clustering.