Iran · Yazd Province
Where to Stay in Ardakān, Yazd Province
Ardakān is a mudbrick desert town of Yazd province in central Iran, a place of wind-towers and old cisterns on the edge of the great desert.
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Where to stay in Ardakān
Each area has its own feel; here's who each one suits.
Ardakān's lodging question is really a question about the old quarter. The lanes around the old quarter keep the mosques, the castle, and the cisterns within a walk, and staying by the old town suits anyone here for the desert houses. Wind-towers throw shade on the alleys.
A few old houses take guests. Out in the newer town and along the highway, the streets run wide and plain. A room in the new town trades the old lanes for space, the shops, and the road on to Yazd.
Bare sand stretches past the edge. Stay by the old town for the wind-towers, or by the highway for the road. Yazd and its old city lie close to the south.
About Ardakān
Ardakān is the wind-tower town of the Yazd desert.
What is Ardakān known for?
On the rim of the central desert of Iran, it kept life going by its qanats and its many domed cisterns, and it keeps a warren of mudbrick lanes and courtyards, a ruined castle, and the house of a statesman born here. Bare desert rings the town. Wind-towers rise over the roofs.
What are the main landmarks in Ardakān?
The mudbrick old town is the heart of Ardakān. Its warren of lanes and courtyard houses, shaded by tall wind-towers and pierced by covered passages, keeps the old desert ways, the emblem of the town, in the centre. A ruined castle stands nearby.
The mudbrick Asil Castle rises over the quarter, while the old mosques, the domed cisterns, and the Khatami family house mark the streets of Ardakān.
What is the history of Ardakān?
Ardakān grew where water could be led to the desert. In this dry corner of the plateau, people dug qanats, the underground channels that carry water for miles from the mountains, and around them a town of mud brick took root long ago. Wind and water shaped its houses.
The builders raised tall wind-towers to catch the desert breeze and cool the rooms, and sank great domed cisterns to store the qanat water against the heat. The town lived by faith and the caravan. For centuries Ardakān traded on the road across the desert and held to its mosques, its old castle, and its ways, a quiet town of the Yazd country.
In our own age it gave Iran a leader. The reformist leader Mohammad Khatami was born in Ardakān, and his family house still stands in the old town. The old cisterns still cool the streets.
Ardakān keeps its wind-towers and its qanats in the Yazd desert.
Where is Ardakān?
Ardakān lies on the edge of the Dasht-e Kavir in Yazd province, central Iran. The town sits on a dry plain of sand and salt flats, watered only by qanats dug from the far mountains, north of Yazd near the old town of Meybod. Bare desert spreads all around.
Dunes and salt lie beyond the fields.
What is the climate of Ardakān?
The desert sets Ardakān's weather, and sets it hard. Long, blazing summers scorch the plain by day and cool sharply at night, and short winters bring hard frost and almost no rain. Dust and heat haze the plain in summer.
The cisterns hold the water cool through the year.
How do you get to Ardakān?
Ardakān lies in Yazd province, north of the city of Yazd. Roads and a rail line run to it across the desert from Yazd and Isfahan, and the highway crosses the plateau nearby. Local roads reach the desert villages and qanats.
Yazd lies about an hour to the south.
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Updated August 2026