Bazargan, Iran

Bazargan (بازرگان; also Romanized as Bāzargān and Bāzergān; also known as Bāzarqān) is a city in, and the capital of, Bazargan District of Maku County, West Azerbaijan province, Iran. At the 2006 census, its population was 9,047 in 2,126 households, when it was in the Central District. The following census in 2011 counted 9,551 people in 2,472 households, by which time Bazargan District had been established, with two rural districts and the city of Bazargan as its capital. The latest census in 2016 showed a population of 9,979 people in 3,043 households. Until well within the 20th century, Bazargan was not much more than a small village, located at an altitude of 1,550 meters on a delta above the Aqchay river. Bazargan's inhabitants, of Turkic origin, were generally involved in traditional agricultural activities. In 1913, the village was ceded by the Ottoman Empire to Qajar Iran. The village of Bazargan has only developed recently (and that in a limited way), due to the existence of the nearby frontier crossing with Turkey. Prior to the 19th century, Bazargan was visited only by few travelers. The French duo Eugène Flandin and Pascal Coste mentioned the village as "Bazirgan" on the map they created showing the daybook and schedule followed by the French embassy to Iranian ruler Mohammad Shah Qajar (1834–1848) in 1840. Picot noted in 1894 that caravans heading to Erzurum in the Ottoman Empire from Tabriz sometimes stopped in the village of Bazargan, which, at the time, numbered only ten houses. The usual route, located further to the south, linked Khoy directly to Doğubayazıt through Avajiq and did not pass through Bazargan at any point. The road through Bazargan has only been in common use in very recent times, as there had been very little communication between the Turkish-held parts of historic Armenia and the Tabriz region of Iran until diplomatic relations between Iran and Turkey became of a more developed kind. As late as 1930, the automobile road still halted at Maku on the Iranian side and Doğubayazıt in Turkey and did not reach Bazargan.