The Stepped Villages of Iran

From a distance, the mountainside seems to be covered with houses, each one resting upon another. The rooftop of one home becomes the courtyard of the house above it. Here, the streets are not roads but stairways, climbing the slope step by step. You hear someone's footsteps before you ever see them. A few steps later, their shadow appears on the wall. Only then does the person come into view. In these villages, there is almost no such thing as a flat surface. The ground is never level, the walls rarely stand perfectly vertical, and every space follows the natural contours of the mountain.

Iran's stepped villages are remarkable examples of architecture shaped by the mountains themselves. Here, the mountain shaped the architecture as much as the people who built it. . Rather than building on level ground, generations of villagers carved their homes directly into the mountainside. Wherever the slopes were steep, stone was abundant, and fertile land was scarce, the villages naturally grew upward rather than outward.

Masuleh in Gilan, Abyaneh near Kashan, Kandovan in East Azerbaijan, and Palangan in Kurdistan—each has its own unique terrain, its own building materials, and its own architectural character. Yet they all share the same defining principle: the roof of one house becomes the courtyard of the house above, while the lower house serves as the retaining wall for the one above it. It is an unwritten geometry—an architectural wisdom passed down not through textbooks or formal instruction, but through generations of observation, experience, and life in the mountains.

In Masuleh, generations of builders relied on stone and timber. The walls were built from locally quarried stone, while sturdy wooden beams supported the floors and roofs, which were covered with clay tiles. The humid climate of Gilan made sun-dried mud bricks impractical, so the villagers turned instead to the two materials the surrounding landscape offered in abundance: stone from the mountains and timber from the forests.The houses stand so closely together that, in many places, there is no street between them at all. To reach your own home, you may have to cross the rooftop of your neighbor's. The stone-paved stairways are almost always damp—even in the height of summer. And when you look down from the uppermost part of the village, the moss-covered rooftops resemble a giant staircase descending gracefully into the valley below.

Abyaneh tells a different story. Here, the village is built not of stone, but of sun-dried mud bricks. Nestled on the slopes of Mount Karkas, its houses are instantly recognizable by their distinctive red earthen walls and wooden lattice windows. The hillside is steep, though not so rugged that stone became a necessity. Instead, generations of villagers made their bricks from the very soil beneath their feet. The lanes are paved with rounded river stones, allowing rainwater to drain away without washing the paths apart.

As in many of Iran's stepped villages, the rooftop of one house serves both as the courtyard of the home above and as part of the village pathway. Private courtyards are rare. Instead, each family has a modest rooftop space used for sitting, drying clothes, and, on warm summer nights, sleeping beneath the open sky.

The adobe walls are built high to preserve the privacy of family life, while the beautifully crafted wooden windows face the valley rather than the narrow passageways. As you walk through Abyaneh, you may look down through the window of a lower house and glimpse the home above—but you can rarely see directly into the house across the lane. In a stepped village, architecture follows its own logic—one shaped not by symmetry, but by the mountain itself.

Kandovan, in northwestern Iran, tells an even more extraordinary story. Here, homes were not built upon the mountain—they were carved directly into it. Each dwelling is hollowed out inside a towering cone of volcanic rock. Instead of a conventional doorway, there is a simple opening. Instead of windows, narrow slits cut through the stone.

Yet inside, the spaces are surprisingly warm and inviting. Simple rooms are lined with hand-carved plaster niches, while a traditional hearth at the center provides warmth in winter. The massive rock walls naturally insulate the interiors, keeping them cool in summer and warm in the colder months.

For centuries, the people of Kandovan have lived within these rock-cut homes . No one remembers who first began carving them. Perhaps it was a shepherd seeking shelter beneath a rocky outcrop during a storm. Perhaps he enlarged the shelter, brought his family, and made it a home. Others followed. One dwelling became several, and over time, a village was born.

In Palangan, in the heart of the Hawraman region, a river winds through the valley below. From the riverbank to the mountaintop, houses cling to the steep hillside, rising one above another in perfect harmony with the landscape.

Stone stairways connect every alley to the next. There are no streets in the conventional sense—only narrow pathways carved into the mountainside, where generations have walked for centuries. Women sit beside the steps spinning yarn, while neighbors recognize one another by their voices long before they come into view. From the highest point of the village, Two sounds dominate the landscape: the steady flow of the river below... and the gentle clatter of spoons against cooking pots drifting from the homes.

Life in these mountain villages has always presented unique challenges. Water had to be carried either from springs high on the mountainside or from sources deep in the valley below. Wastewater had to be carefully channeled so that it would never seep into the homes built beneath.

Generations of experience taught villagers exactly how steep a pathway should be—enough to carry rainwater safely downhill, but not into their homes. The stone steps were built with carefully varied heights, allowing water to drain naturally instead of collecting on the stairways. Floors were subtly angled so that even if water trickled down from the terraces above, it would flow away rather than into the living spaces.

This knowledge was never written in books. It survived through practice, observation, and memory—passed quietly from one generation to the next, as fathers taught their children the wisdom of building with the mountain rather than against it.

Life in these stepped villages has always come with its own challenges. Water had to be carried either from the valley below or from springs high in the mountains. Wastewater had to be carefully directed so that it would never seep into the homes beneath.

Generations of experience taught villagers exactly how steep a lane should be—just enough for rainwater to flow safely downhill, but never into a house. The stone steps were built with carefully varied heights so that water would not collect on their surfaces. House floors were given a subtle slope, ensuring that even if water trickled down from the terrace above, it would drain away instead of entering the living space.

No one ever wrote these rules down. They were never part of a manual or a textbook. Yet every generation knew them, passing this practical knowledge from father to son, through experience, observation, and the simple act of building.

Light behaves differently in a stepped village. Every house lives partly in the shadow of the one above it. Yet the local builders understood the movement of the sun with remarkable precision. They knew that in winter, when the sun remains low in the sky, homes on the eastern slopes would receive more daylight. So they positioned their living spaces to make the most of it.

Morning light slips through the doorway. At midday, it enters from an opening above. By late afternoon, it filters in through a rear window. Over the course of a single sunny day, sunlight reaches the stone house from three different directions—each time through a different opening.They instinctively know where to place a meal so that it catches the warmth of the sun, and where to keep it as evening approaches.

Privacy takes on a different meaning in Iran's stepped villages. From the house below, you can hear the laughter of children playing on the rooftop above—your own roof. You may catch the aroma of your neighbors' cooking drifting through the air. Yet you cannot look into their home, because there is no private courtyard to overlook.From certain vantage points, your neighbors above may see you sitting on your rooftop, while you cannot see them unless you deliberately step forward and look over the edge.

It is an unwritten understanding, observed by everyone: each person respects the roof of the neighbor below. In these villages, the rooftop is more than part of a house—it is a personal boundary. Beyond it begins your neighbor's world; on this side lies your own.

Today, Masuleh, Abyaneh, Kandovan, and Palangan are still living villages, but their populations are far smaller than they once were. Many young people have left for the cities, drawn by level streets, modern roads, and new opportunities. Some of the old stone and adobe houses now stand empty. Others have found new life as guesthouses or eco-lodges, while a number have been purchased as holiday homes by visitors from elsewhere.

The elderly women still sit quietly at their doorways, watching the stone stairways as they always have. The sound of hikers' footsteps echoes down from above. The aroma of freshly baked bread drifts through the narrow lanes. A cat leaps effortlessly from one rooftop to the next. Life has not disappeared from these mountain villages. It still endures—only now, it moves at a gentler, quieter pace than it once did.

The architecture of Iran's stepped villages tells the story of homes built upon homes—on steep slopes, upon stone, and from earth. It is the story of communities that found their path by following the mountain itself, rather than the lines of an urban plan.

There are no long, straight streets. No rigid symmetry. Instead, thousands of stone steps and countless wooden windows come together in such remarkable harmony that, from a distance, the village resembles a vast chessboard spread across the mountainside. Each house is a square on that board. Each square has sheltered a family through generations—through the cold of winter and the heat of summer—perched securely upon the mountain's slope.