Mashad, is the second-most-populous city in Iran, located in the relatively remote north-east of the country about 900 kilometres (560 miles) from Tehran. It serves as the capital of Razavi Khorasan Province and has a population about 3,400,000 (2016 census), which includes the areas of Mashhad Taman and Torqabeh.
The city has been governed by different ethnic groups over the course of its history. Mashhad was once a major oasis along the ancient Silk Road connecting with Merv to the east. It enjoyed relative prosperity in the Mongol period. The city is named after the shrine of Imam Reza, the eighth Shia Imam, who was buried in a village in Khorasan which afterward gained the name, meaning the "place of martyrdom". Every year, millions of pilgrims visit the Imam Reza shrine. The Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid is also buried within the same shrine.
