Why it looks like this

The city's name means 'place of martyrdom': Imam Reza, the eighth Shia imam, died and was buried here in 818, and a village around the tomb grew into Iran's second city. The shrine complex — one of the largest religious compounds in the world — sits at the exact centre of the street network, with avenues converging on it from every direction and ring roads circling it.

Serving millions of pilgrims each year is the city's industry, and the blocks nearest the shrine — hotels, bazaars, courtyards — have been rebuilt again and again around the fixed holy point.