Ilam is a city in and the capital of Ilam Province

Ilam Province

Ilam Province is one of the 31 provinces of Iran. It is in the south-west of the country, bordering Iraq. Its provincial center is the city of Ilam. Covering an area of 19,086 square kilometers, the cities of the province are Ilam, Mehran, Dehloran, Dareh Shahr, Sarable, Eyvan, Abdanan and Arkwaz...

, Iran

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

. At the 2006 census, its population was 155,289, in 34,549 families.

The Kabir Kuh

Kabir Kuh

Kabir Kuh is a very long mountainous ridge stretching about 150 miles in length on the borders of Lurestan and Ilam Province in Iran. The highest peak is called Kaane seifi which is almost 50 km far from Ilam....

 mountain range

Mountain range

A mountain range is a single, large mass consisting of a succession of mountains or narrowly spaced mountain ridges, with or without peaks, closely related in position, direction, formation, and age; a component part of a mountain system or of a mountain chain...

 lies east of the city. From the west it borders Iraq

Iraq

Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....

. The city is populated by Kurds

Kurdish people

The Kurdish people, or Kurds , are an Iranian people native to the Middle East, mostly inhabiting a region known as Kurdistan, which includes adjacent parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey...

 and speak Kurdish

Kurdish language

Kurdish is a dialect continuum spoken by the Kurds in western Asia. It is part of the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian group of Indo-European languages....

.

Climate

Ilam is situated in the cold mountainous region of Iran at a height of 1319 metres (4,327.4 ft) above mean sea level. It is located in the west of Iran at a latitude of 33º 38´ north and longitude of 46º 26´ east. Although this city is surrounded by mountains, its climate is also affected by deserts from the west and the south. This region presents a highly variable annual weather profile. Heavy showers or snow in the winter and dusty, brutally hot, dry weather in the summer are normal for this region. The climate is classed under the Köppen climate classification

Köppen climate classification

The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by Crimea German climatologist Wladimir Köppen in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen himself, notably in 1918 and 1936...

 as a Mediterranean climate

Mediterranean climate

A Mediterranean climate is the climate typical of most of the lands in the Mediterranean Basin, and is a particular variety of subtropical climate...

(Csa) but the seasonal variation in temperature is much greater than usual for this type of climate.
• Photo gallery, containing 25 photographs with informative captions in English: http://www.jadidonline.com/slideshow/1240/1.