Qom (Persian: قم; [ɢom]ⓘ), also Romanized as Ghom, Ghum, or Qum, is a city in the Central District of Qom County, Qom province, Iran, serving as capital of the province, the county, and the district.[4] It is the seventh largest metropolis[5] and also the seventh largest city in Iran.[6] The city is 140 km (87 mi) to the south of Tehran,[7] and on the banks of the Qom River.
At the 2006 census, its population was 957,496 in 241,827 households.[8] The following census in 2011 counted 1,074,036 people in 299,752 households.[9] The 2016 census showed a population of 1,201,158 people in 356,976 households.[1]
Qom is considered holy in Shi'aIslam, as it is the site of the shrine of Fatimah bint Musa, sister of Imam Ali ibn Musa Rida[10] (Persian: Imam Reza; 789–816). The city is the largest center for Shi'a scholarship in the world, and is a significant destination of pilgrimage, with around twenty million pilgrims visiting the city every year, the majority being Iranians but also other Shi'a Muslims from all around the world.[11] Qom is also famous for a Persian brittle toffee known as sohan (Persian: سوهان), considered a souvenir of the city and sold by thousands of sohan vendors.
Qom has developed into a lively industrial center owing in part to its proximity to Tehran. It is a regional center for the distribution of petroleum and petroleum products, and a natural gas pipeline from Bandar Anzali and Tehran and a crude oil pipeline from Tehran run through Qom to the Abadanrefinery on the Persian Gulf. Qom gained additional prosperity when oil was discovered at Sarajeh near the city in 1956 and a large refinery was built between Qom and Tehran.
Some researchers have considered the word "Kom" (in the ancient name of Komidan (Komiran)) to mean "city" and believe that there is a lexical connection between the words "Komiran", "Shemiran (near Tehran)", "Tehran", "Chamran (in Saveh areas)" and "Iran", and they considered the old name of Qom to be "Komiran" (in the meaning of "Iran city").[12]
