Varkaneh Village in Hamedan Province is a rural destination popular with tourists visiting western Iran.
In the Kurdish dialect, var means side and kaneh means spring. So Varkaneh is a place located on the edge of a spring.
The village, 2,250 m above sea level, has mild and lovely weather in the spring and summer. But it’s very cold in the winter.
People first took up residence in the village during the early years of the Safavid era, almost four centuries ago.
Azeri, Farsi and Kurdish are spoken by people in the village who are Shiite Muslims. A 2006 census put the number of the village residents at 1,000.
Varkaneh is one of the six touristy villages in the province and has been registered as a national heritage site.
The following images of Varkaneh have been posted online by Mehr News Agency: