Modern Applied Science; Vol. 10, No. 8; 2016 ISSN 1913-1844 E-ISSN 1913-1852 Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education 18 An Analysis on Locating and Finding the Most Appropriate Option in Order to Shifting Capital in Iran Masoud Taghvaei 1 , Neda Rahmani 2 & Mahsa Akrami 3 1 Professor of geography and urban planning, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran 2 MA of geography and urban planning, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran 3 MA of geography and urban planning, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran Correspondence: Masoud Taghvaei, Professor of geography and urban planning, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran. E-mail: m.taghvaei@geo.ui.ac.ir Received: February 12, 2016 Accepted: March 22, 2016 Online Published: May 17, 2016 doi:10.5539/mas.v10n8p18 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/mas.v10n8p18 We are grateful to Center of excellence; Geography and urban and regional planning to their material and spiritual support in publishing this paper. Abstract Capital is the most important city in every country and it is the concentration center of political, social and economical powers. Every country is introduced by its capital. The issue of shifting capital is offered and conducted in some countries in the world. Iran had the experience of shifting its capital many times in different historical periods according to the certain circumstances. In this research, 19 options are examined. Type of the research is descriptive-analytical type and required information are collected in six indicators of environmental conditions, geographical position, locating in less dangerous zones, suitable facilities and infrastructures, cultural and social structures, economical status using documents and questionnaire. The collected data is analyzed using AHP by Expert Choice software. The obtained results indicate that among examined options, Hashtgerd, Doroud Vazena and Pardis are the most appropriate cities with weights 0.075, 0.068, 0.064, and Qom, Khomein and Hamadan are the most inappropriate cities for shifting capital with weights 0.043, 0.043 and 0.032. Keywords: shifting capital, capital, Tehran, Iran 1. Introduction Capital is the city with the most population and it is the biggest economical and cultural center (Behforouz, 2002: 197). Most importantly, capital is the political center of a country and settlement of heads of three branches (executive, legislative, juridical), their members, all ministries, state-run offices and foreign embassies. Capitals, which had active roles during the history of a nation, have usually obvious merit to other cities by exhibiting historical, cultural and national symbols (Mirheidar, 1994:143). Indeed, this place is the geographical, geometrical or functional center of a geographical space and it absorbs motivational forces in that space, human and framework factors and elements, currents and networks toward itself. On the other hand, it is counted as a central point for distributing phenomena, orders and political actions all over that space (Hafeznia, 2002:282). Capitals have certain importance as the presentation places of social systems' functions. The matter of shifting capital, transferring and locating a new place is a common issue with historical record. In the meanwhile, such as many countries, Iran was not far from this process during past decades and it shifted and transferred its capital in several stages (Nobari, 2009:4). Actually, choice of a place for shifting capital happens when governments consider their present capital as a dysfunctional city and make themselves leave that capital (Ahmadipour et al., 2011:86). In the process of transferring and locating capitals of Iran, so many factors such as local source, situation of central (main) location and external treats played essential roles as influential geopolitical facts (Ahmadi & Vali Gholizadeh, 2007:29). Scientific and experimental evidences show that nowadays, Tehran city is faced to many serious and increasing damages and forms of these damages are clearly seen in dysfunctional actions of infrastructural and framework equipments, economical and social problems and spreading environmental pollutions. Continuing this trend will