Mondo Knows Facts

Persian qanats carried water underground for miles

Tunnel builders tapped hillside aquifers and led them downhill by gentle gradients A qanat is a gently sloping tunnel that collects groundwater at the foot of a hill and carries it to fields and towns, with vertical shafts every few dozen metres for digging and air. The technique spread across Iran, Central Asia and North Africa, and some Iranian systems are still in use. UNESCO lists the Persian qanat as a World Heritage cultural landscape. It sits in Mondo's history collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.

Where this comes from

UNESCO World Heritage Centre

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Tags: iran, irrigation, engineering

Persian qanats carried water underground for miles: the short answers

Where does this come from, and can I check it?
Tunnel builders tapped hillside aquifers and led them downhill by gentle gradients. The figure is taken from UNESCO World Heritage Centre, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
Is this really a history fact?
Yes. It sits on the History shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
What else can I read about it?
The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.