Qamsar

For the administrative division, see Qamsar District. For the village in Tehran province, see Qamzar.

Qamsar Persian: قمصر
City
View from the city of Qamsar
Coordinates:
Country	Iran
Province	Isfahan
County	Kashan
District	Qamsar
Population  (2016)
• Total	3,877
Time zone	UTC+3:30 (IRST)

Qamsar (Persian: قمصر) is a city in, and the capital of, Qamsar District of Kashan County, Isfahan province, Iran. The district is 15 km south of Kashan.

History

From the 13th century and possibly considerably earlier, cobalt was mined near Qamsar. The metal oxide was exported all over the Muslim world for use as the cobalt blue pigment in the decoration of pottery. It is possible that the cobalt ore was also exported to China. In 1301 Abū'l-Qāsim, who came from a family of tilemakers based in Kashan, wrote a treatise on the manufacture of fritware ceramics in which he mentions the village as a source of cobalt ore.

Albert Houtum-Schindler visited the village at the end of the 19th century when Qamsar was "a large and flourishing village of about three hundred houses with extensive gardens with fine roses used for the manufacture of rosewater." He described the processing and marketing of the cobalt-containing ore.

Vessels used for the preparation of rose water

Ghamsar is host to one of the biggest festivals of Iran called Golabgiri to celebrate the production of rose water in spring.

Demographics

Population

At the time of the 2006 National Census, the city's population was 3,566 in 1,048 households. The following census in 2011 counted 3,410 people in 1,066 households. The 2016 census measured the population of the city as 3,877 people in 1,271 households.