Abadan
Ābādān
, city in south-western Iran, Khuzistan Province, on Ābādān Island in the Shatt Al Arab, near the head of the Persian Gulf. It is a major petroleum refining and petroleum shipping centre. Crude oil is pumped to the city from oil fields that lie to the north. Ābādān has an international airport and is the seat of the Ābādān Institute of Technology (founded 1939). The land was ceded to Iran by Turkey in 1847. Oil was discovered in the vicinity in 1908, and in 1913 Ābādān was selected as the site of a pipeline terminus refinery. Major fighting occurred in Ābādān during the 1980s as a result of the Iran-Iraq war. Population (1976) 296,081.
The earliest evidence of humans in what is now Iran dates back
about 100,000 years, when small hunter-gatherer groups formed a sparse population.
From about 38,000 to about 12,000 years ago, there were various flint-working
cultures in the area. By about 6000 BC, agricultural villages were located over
much of the Iranian Plateau. However, most of the area did not progress into
literate urban cultures, such as those of the Indus Valley or Mesopotamia. The
exception was Elam, which—from about 2700 BC—had a federal government with checks
and balances and a complicated system by which official power was inherited.
The system lasted for more than 1,500 years before Elam was conquered by Babylon.