Maku City

The township of Maku (or Makoo) is a city in the West Azerbaijan Province the northwestern most region of Iran, is mountainous and beautiful. Maku is within international borders from three sides, its capital is the city of Maku, located 939 km. from Tehran. With a moderate climate and at an altitude of 1,294 m. above sea level. The city is in a semi-circular shape with the mountains sheltering it. In its primary stages, during the reign of Shah Abbas I, the city was no more than a fort dating to the year 1012 AH.

It is situated 22 kilometres (14 mi) from the Turkish border in a mountain gorge at an altitude of 1634 metres. The Zangmar River cuts through the city. Maku Free Trade and Industrial Zone is Iran’s largest and the world’s second largest free trade zone and will encompass an area of 5000 square km when it was scheduled to open in 2011. Azerbaijanis and later Kurds constitute the population of the city.

History:
Maku was a region of the old Armenia c. 300-800, previously known as Artaz. A branch of the family Amatuni ruled it until mid of first half of XVI-th century when they lost it to ottomans and their kurdish allies. Maku was the capital of a Kangarli Khanate one of numerous small, semi-independent Maku Khanates that resulted from the breakup of the Safavid empire in the 17th century.

Maku served as the capital of the Kurdish Jalali dynasty into the 1860s when the centralizing Qajar (Ghajar) government in Persia/Iran removed them, appointing a governor instead.

The city is well known in Bahaa'i history for its fort where the Baab had been exiled to and imprisoned for nine months. At this fortress Molla Husain, the first Disciple of the Baab, arrived on Norooz of the year 1848 to see the Baab.