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Sistan,
also spelled SEISTAN, extensive border region, eastern Iran and southwestern
Afghanistan. Forty percent of its area is in Iran, as well as the
majority of its sparse population. The region comprises a large depression
some 1,500-1,700 feet (450-520 m) in elevation. Numerous rivers fill
a series of lagoons (hamun) and in high flood form a shallow
lake that spills into another depression to the south. Three large
deltas form the main regions of settlement: Lash-Juwain on the Farah
River, Chakhansur on the Khash River (both in Afghanistan), and Sistan
proper on the Helmand River. Sistan has a true desert climate, with
a highly irregular rainfall averaging less than 4 inches (100 mm)
annually, extreme heat in summer, and frosts in winter. A "wind
of 120 days" blows unceasingly from the north during summer,
causing considerable erosion.
The population is chiefly Tajik, though of mixed descent. There
is a strong nomadic element of Balochi and Brahui, in addition to
groups of Jat and Gujars, and of Gavdars, who breed humped cattle.
Sistan is bounded on the south by the region of Balochistan. Sistan's
principal town, Zabol, is joined to the Meshed-Zahedan highway by
road; Zahedan, with its railhead to Quetta (Pakistan), is the region's
international outlet. Chakhansur is the chief town of Afghan Sistan.
Strife, corruption, and isolation hampered Sistan's economy, which
depended on a makeshift dam that annually was swept away by flood.
Today two dams irrigate approximately 320,000 acres (130,000 hectares)
of land. The chief crops are wheat and barley, with a little cotton
and corn (maize).
Sistan is the reputed land of origin of the legendary Kayanian
dynasty of Persia. From AD 226 the Sasanian monarchs ruled Sistan
by constructing dams and irrigation canals. In the mid-7th century
Muslim Arabs invaded Sistan and introduced Islam, though less effectively
than elsewhere. The region was controlled by a series of local and
outside dynasties in following centuries, including the harsh rule
of Timur (Tamerlane), a Turkic conqueror, in the 14th century. Sistan
subsequently was independent under its own maliks (kings).
Though Shah Isma'il I (1502-24) of Persia conquered Sistan, he and
his successors left the maliks largely in control. In 1747
Sistan came under the control of an Afghan, after whose death it
was for long a bone of contention between Iran and Afghanistan.
This dispute led to British arbitration and the delimitation of
the Irano-Afghan frontier in 1872, a work brought to a close only
in 1903-05. In the early 1970s the Iranian government sponsored
extensive irrigation works in the Iranian portion of Sistan. |
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