At the 2006 census, its population was 20,581 in 5,473 households, when it was in the former Mehdishahr District of Semnan County).[8] The following census in 2011 counted 19,854 people in 5,705 households,[9] by which time the district had been separated from the county in the establishment of Mehdishahr County, with Mehdishahr as its capital.[7] The latest census in 2016 showed a population of 24,485 people in 7,679 households.[2]
Mehdishahr is located on the southern slopes of the Alborz mountains. Here, the chain of Alborz mountains is very close to the desertofDasht-e Kavir.
Sangsar, specially the northern part of it, is completely mountainous with cold winters, heavy snowfalls but with mild summers.
The distance between Sangsar city and Semnan city is 20 kilometers. The altitude is about 1630 meters above sea level.
View of the old town with mosque in the background
The primary religious belief in the area now is Shi‘ite Islam, but before the Islamic Revolution, there were many followers of the Baháʼí Faith in Sangsar, who had to migrate from the city after the revolution, due to a wide range of persecutions. As for other towns of Iran, the name has thus been changed by the Islamic authorities into Mahdishahr as if to signal its imposed pure Muslim identity. Mahdi is the Shia Muslim hidden Imam and Shahr means town in Persian, so Mahdishahr literally means town of Mahdi.
The most important network of roads consists of Semnan to Sangsar to Shahmirzad to Fooladmahale axis which connects these places with the city of Sari. This road connects the two provinces of Mazandaran and Semnan.
Sangsar area has an old history which goes back to 1st millennium BC. First inhabitants of Sangsar used to worship moon and stars. There are some theories about Sangsar name; One of them emphasizes about a Saka origin and suggests the name used to be Sakasar or Saksar which means Saka (scythian) settlement.
^Sangsar can be found at GEOnet Names Server, at this link, by opening the Advanced Search box, entering "10601188" in the "Unique Feature Id" form, and clicking on "Search Database".
