It is located south of modern Faliyan in the Kazerun County of Pars Province, Iran.

[1] According to an inscription, the city itself was founded in 266 AD by Shapur I (241–272), who was the second Sassanid king and inflicted a triple defeat on the Romans, having killed Gordian III, captured Valerian and forced Philip the Arab to surrender.

The city was not a completely new settlement: archaeologists have found remains from the Parthian and Elamite ages.

The city remained important until the Arab conquest of Persia the rise of Islam in the second quarter of the 7th century AD.

The British archaeologist Georgina Herrmann has also written a book about the Sasanian rock reliefs in Bishapur which was published in 1980.