Masouleh,a living museum with stepped town

The tourist village of Masouleh is one of the historical sites with pleasant weather, cool summers and snowy winters. It is located in the southwest of the province of Gilan.This village covers an area of one hundred hectares, and is under the protection of Organization of Cultural Heritage and Natural Resources, it has nice weather and welcomes tens of thousands of tourists every year. This village is known in the world because of its unique architecture.

Houses are more two-storey and rarely are in one or three floors. The house sections are corridor, dungeon, storage, high steps linking the ground floor to the second floor, hall which is a fairly large room for the reception of guests, the smaller room which is the permanent place for residents and Sumeh which is for winter usage. Smaller houses are simpler and have less space. In this village, houses are made of clay and stone, wooden beams and wild ferns.  Wild fern grows in Masouleh and its surroundings and is water insulation. Most people of Masouleh coats the roofs of their houses with yellow and blue flowers that comes both from the vicinity of the village. The area in front of houses and the roofs are used both as pavements. The architecture texture of Masouleh was formed during Zandieh period.  Too many stairs and narrow alleys don’t allow any motorized vehicle to pass. The village architecture is described in one sentence: the yard of the higher building is the roof for the lower building.