Lankaran

Lankaran (also called Länkäran, Lencoran, and Lenkoran’) is a city in Azerbaijan. It is on the coast of the Caspian Sea, near the southern border of Iran. There were 83,300 people living there in 2010. It is next to Lankaran rayon. Lankaran was for a long time the capital of the Talysh Khanate. Lankaran International Airport is the airport for the city. There are sandy beaches near Lankaran.

Lənkəran
Lankaran
Seal
Country	Azerbaijan
City	Lankaran
Government
Area
• Total	70 km2 (30 sq mi)
Population  (2010)[1]
• Total	83,300
Time zone	UTC+4 (AZT)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+5 (AZT)

The old form of the name was "Langarkanan". In Persian, it means "the place of pulling up the anchor(s)".

Education

Lankaran State University was started in 1991.

Sports

• Khazar Lankaran plays football in the Azerbaijan Premier League.
• In 2012, the city hosted the European Masters Weightlifting Championship.^[2]

Notable natives

• Jahan Talyshinskaya — folk song singer and theatre actress.^[3]
• Hazi Aslanov — twice Hero of the Soviet Union.^[4]
• Mikhail Pavlov — Hero of Socialist Labor, given by the Soviet Union.^[5]
• Pasha Tahmazov — National Hero of Azerbaijan.^[6]
• Samedbey Mehmandarov — Russian army general, Minister of Defense of Azerbaijan Democratic Republic.