The neighborhood has had a long history in Iranian urbanization. Since urban plans were
introduced by the authorities to shape urban development in Iran half a century ago, the concept of Iranian traditional
neighborhood has been neglected gradually. The concept of neighborhood has not found the appropriate status in
urban design and planning yet. One of the main reasons is that academics, professional urban planners, designers
and managers use different definition and no consensus exists on definition of neighborhood. The aim of research
is to compare residents’ perception of their neighborhood boundaries with boundaries of administrative-defined
Neighborhoods which municipalities consider. The main hypothesis of the research is fundamental difference between
these two views: top- down view from experts and urban managers who see the neighborhood as a spatial unit for city
organizing and bottom- up view from residents who consider the neighborhood as the place of their social life. The
Research methodology has been done base on the survey method and an analytical approach has been applied. The
case study is located in Mashhad city in Iran. Four municipality-defined neighborhoods were selected in various urban
fabrics of the city. Findings indicate that residents’ definition of their neighborhood was influenced by socio-spatial
factors and interaction of these on each other. There is a substantial and fundamental difference between residents’
definition of neighborhood and municipality-defined neighborhood. Finally, this study proposes recommendations for
the better definition of administrative neighborhoods in Iran.