Bandar-e Mahshahr (Persian: بندرماهشهر) is a city in the Central District of Mahshahr County, Khuzestan province, Iran, serving as capital of both the county and the district.

Most of its people speak a dialect that was a mixture of Southern Luri and Bushehri, which is still spoken by most people, taught by the elderly people to the younger generations (the dialect though still thrives in Hendijan and especially Genaaveh). So now Mahshahrians are still mainly Lur-speaking. Local Persians are mostly of Behbahani, Qanavati, and Bandari families. There is also a local Arabic-speaking minority whose roots go back to Qabban in Iraq.

At the time of the 2006 National Census, the city's population was 109,927 in 24,110 households. The following census in 2011 counted 153,778 people in 38,301 households. The 2016 census measured the population of the city as 162,797 people in 45,208 households.

On July 31, 2015, at around 4:30 PM Iran Daylight Time (3:10 PM apparent solar time), the air temperature measured at the Bandar-e Mahshahr airport was 46 °C (115 °F), the dew point was 32 °C (90 °F), and the relative humidity was 49%. This corresponds to a wet-bulb temperature of 34.6 °C (94.3 °F), slightly below the 35 °C (95 °F) mark that is considered the maximum humans can tolerate, above which extended exposure will lead to death. Together, the city had a heat index of 74 °C (165 °F), the second highest heat index ever recorded anywhere in the world.

Bandar Mahshahr is one of the old ports of the Persian Gulf. This city was founded in the time of the Sassanids of Mahshur and in 231 AD during the reign of Ardashir Babakan under the name of Rivardshir, which was then called Reyshahr. [4] In many travelogues and histories, the port of Mahshahr has been mentioned with names such as Mehroban, Machol, and Mahshur, for example, Ibn Battuta has called this port "Majul" (Arabicized Machol), which according to Soltani Behbahani, is the same as Mahshur (some sources: Ma'shur) which is derived from ushr (customs) (p. 227). According to Ibn Battuta, Majul was a small city with salty lands without trees and vegetation, and it had one of the largest bazaars, and legumes were taken from Ramez (Ramhormuz), and it was a three-day journey from Majul to Ramiz through the desert. [2] In many travelogues and chronicles, the port of Mahshahr has been mentioned with names such as Machol and Mahshur, some of which are mentioned below: In the travelogue of Nasir Khosravi Ghobadiani (394-481 AH), it is mentioned that from there (Abadan) we reached the city of Mehruban (Bandar Mahshahr) after traveling ten parasangs. It is a big city on the edge of the sea, it has a large market on the eastern side, and it has a good community, but their water was not from the rainwater of wells and canals that could provide fresh water. They have ponds and ponds that have never been short of water, and there have been three large caravanserais, each of which is a strong and excellent fence, in the mosque of Adina, where I saw on the pulpit, the name of Yaqub Laith is written. I asked one of them how he was doing, and he said that Ya'qub had taken Layth as far as this city, but he had no power over any other Amir of Khorasan. On this date, when I arrived there, this city was in the hands of the sons of Aba al-Najjar, who was the king of Persia, and the Khwarbar, i.e., Makul (in Arabic, the locality is changed to ch, which is the main root of the name Machol), this city was taken from the cities and provinces, so that there was nothing but fish, and this city was a tribute, and the shippers, when they went south from there to the sea, were in the region of Toh and Kazeroun And I remained in this city of mercy because they said that the roads were unsafe, because the sons of Abu al-Najjar were fighting and enmity with each other, and each of them was killing each other, and the kingdom was disturbed. [3]

Important Explanations about Mehroban: Some people mistakenly believe that the Mehrubani mentioned in the chronicles (including Nasir Khusrau's travelogue) is actually the place where its ruins are located near Hendijan today. The reason for the mistake: is that Nasir Khusrau (who has a part of his travelogue above) has mentioned that it was 10 farsangs from Abadan to Mehruban, which is equal to about 70 kilometers, and since it was traveled by water by ship, it will be somewhere near the present port of Mahshahr, while the place that is sometimes erroneously announced is about 30 farsangs or 180 kilometers away from Abadan. [3]

Also, historians such as Hamzeh Isfahani have written the former name of this city of Rivardshir. It is also written that a group of Sassanid secretaries took refuge in Reyshahr after the conquest of Ctesiphon by the Arabs. [4]

The area around Machol was a green area, as Ibn Battuta, an Andalusian traveler, wrote in his travelogue in the eighth century AH: "From the port of Machol to Hindu, we walked under the shade of trees, and in broad daylight we saw less sunlight from the multitude of trees." [15] As for Mahshahr itself, he says: "Machol (written in the book in Arabic as Majul) is a small town next to a creek that branches off from the Persian Sea. The lands in these areas are salt marshes, with neither trees nor vegetation. There is a big market in Machol, which is one of the biggest." [16] The port of Mahshur (Mahshahr) was not very important in the Safavid period and afterwards and its name is not mentioned in historical and geographical books. Lord Curzon, who had traveled to the south of Iran at the end of the Qajar period, introduced the port of Mahshur as a small port, which has long since lost its former name and logo, and its transportation was done by local boats. [17] At the beginning of the 14th century/end of the 19th century, the port of Mahshahr was a small port from which local ships transported imported and exported goods to the neighboring Arab tribes. [18] Kazerouni recorded the distance between it and the sea of one and a half leagues and wrote: "At high tide, the sea water comes to the mouth up to half a farsang of the mentioned port, and small and medium-sized ships come up to half a farsang of the said port and take out what is the cargo of the ships from them, and that place is called Sayf (harbor), and then from its castle, the number of houses (three hundred houses), its annual tribute He mentions 1,200 piasters and a head of butter that they gave to Shaykh Thamer Khan, women who wore clothes similar to Arab clothes, and men who wore clothes made up of Arabic and non-Arabic clothes." [19]

The ancient name that is then seen in the texts for this city is Machol. [20] This name was then changed to Module and Mahshur, and then, with the approval of the Academy of Persian Language and Literature in 1965, this name was changed to Bandar Mahshahr. The indigenous people call it Mahshur (or Ma'shur). [Pg 21]

Among its historical monuments are the remains of dilapidated buildings called "Tal Kafaran", many cisterns and wells hewn stones, and the ruins of the settlement of Reyshahr near the northeast of Bandar Mahshahr. [22]

The port of Bandar-e Mahshahr is immediately adjacent to the East of the port of Bandar-e Emam Khomeyni. It is specialized in oil and petrochemical products exports. It includes a Special economic zone used by the National Iranian Petrochemical Company and the National Petrochemical Company (NPC), the Special industrial economic zones 'Petzone'.

The port of Bandar-e Mahshahr is mostly used by tanker ships and is accessible through the same channel as the port of Bandar-e Emam Khomeyni, i.e. the 42 miles long, 45 meter deep Khor Musa channel.

Mahshahr has two universities. Islamic Azad University of Mahshahr and Amirkabir University of Technology, Mahshahr campus. Both universities concentrate on engineering programs, especially petroleum and petrochemical engineering.

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