Evaluation of the possibility of new towns establishment in the south coasts of country to develop the national power of Islamic Republic of Iran

Relying on their certain strategic and geopolitical features as well as their relative advantages, seaports connecting to the free seas are very important in terms of spatial planning and development of countries in various dimensions. Through their globalization procedure and in the course of competition with regional and international countries, the seaports can manifest the additive effects of growth and development in various national structures. National and geopolitical power is an important structure that can be influenced in the citie's globalization process. The study is based on the premise that "Iran's southern seaports, which have been established spatially in the Persian Gulf's strategic zone, can affect positively national and geopolitical power of Iran through development and realizing the quasi-globalization condition." So this study tries to assess priority and potential of Iran’s southern seaports. The study is a descriptive-analytical one in terms of nature and is an applied one in terms of objective. Both library and field (questionnaire) studies, based on experts opinions, were used to collect data. The Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) was used to rank cities, while entropy method was employed for weighing dimensions and indexes. For comparing cities, eight globalization components and their 78 relevant indexes were used. Initially, southern seaports were compared and ranked based on various components and dimensions and then final ranking and priority assessment was carried out based on the mixed indexes and allocation of relative importance to each dimension. The results showed that Chabahar, Kish, Abadan and Bandar Abbas were listed as the first priority of developing quasi-global cities in Persian Gulf in terms of the mixed indexes; therefore, creating and developing quasi-global cities in these cities can improve regional, national and international functions which it may result in increasing of national and geopolitical power of Iran.