Ahar

Ahar اهر
city
Sheikh-shahab tomb, Ahar, Iran
Ahar
Coordinates: 38°28′39″N 47°04′12″E / 38.47750°N 47.07000°E / 38.47750; 47.07000Coordinates: 38°28′39″N 47°04′12″E / 38.47750°N 47.07000°E / 38.47750; 47.07000
Country	Iran
Province	East Azerbaijan
County	Ahar
Bakhsh	Central
Population (2006)
• Total	85,782
Time zone	IRST (UTC+3:30)
• Summer (DST)	IRDT (UTC+4:30)

Ahar (Persian: ‎‎, Azerbaijani: اهر) is a city in and the capital of Ahar County, East Azerbaijan Province, Iran. According to the 2006 census, Ahar was the fifth most populated city of the province with a population of 85,782 in 20,844 families. Ahar was the capital of Karadag Khanate in 18th and 19th centuries.

In the wake of Russo-Persian War (1804–13) Ahar, with 3500 inhabitants, was the only city of Qaradağ. Around the mid 1830s the population was estimated to be from five to six thousand inhabitants in about six hundred houses. By 1956 the population had increased to 19816. At the 2006 census, its population was 85,782, in 20,844 families. Despite this population boom the city has been losing its former importance to the much smaller neighboring Kaleybar city as the later is gaining nationwide fame as a tourist destination.

In early nineteenth century, James Morier, who visited Ahar, proposed the following idea, "There appears to be in the name of Ahar a better ground for conjecture that it is Hara, one of the three cities mentioned in 1 Chronicles, v. 26., to which the Reubenites, the Gadites, and half tribe of Manasseh were carried away by Tilgath Pilneser, King of Assyria, than Tarom or Tarim, which Major Rennel has adopted in his luminous disquisition concerning the disposal of the Jewish tribes. -f The letters which exist in Hara also exist in Ahar; and a transposition of syllables or letters having nearly the same sounds, is common in the East: such as Lezgee for Legzee, Corbal for Colbar; Tilgath Pilneser, is also written Tiglath Pileser." Subsequently, other writers, for instance Edward Farr, found Morier's conjecture plausible.

Ahar is one of the ancient cities of Azerbaijan, its name before Islam was "meimad". In the 12th-13th centuries, Ahar was a minor and short-lived, but prosperous emirate ruled by the Pishteginid dynasty of Georgian origin (1155—1231).Yaqut al-Hamawi, writing in early thirteenth century, describes Ahar as very flourishing despite its small extent.