Yazd lies at center of Iran, to the north and east lie the deserts Dashte-Kavìr and Dasht-e Lut. Yazd is an important manufacturing center with cotton, silk, and wool textile mills; a steel plant, a factory making water purification and filtration equipment; carpet-weaving workshops; and food-processing enterprises. Yazd sits on the main highway and rail line fromTehran to Bandar Abbas. It is also served by an airport.
There are many historical sites including the Jameh mosque, where Muslims gather to worship on fridays. The mosque was built between the 12th and 15th centuries on the site of a pre-Islamic Zoroastrian fire temple. The city is also home to the 14th-century Vaqto-Saat shrine and library, the 15th-century Mir Chakhmaq mosque, the 15th-century covered bazaar, and the Zoroastrian Towers of Silence.
Several thousands of old houses in the center of the city are topped with high wind towers, a traditional architectural feature of Yazd. The towers, some as high as 6 m (20 ft), trap breezes and conduct them downward to rooms at ground level, providing a form of early air conditioning.