Bahman Shahryari Sajahroudi, Habib Soleymani, Najaf Aghaei and Said Sanei
Tourism is one of the greatest industries in the world. Sport tourism as a part of tourism has been made through a combination of sport and tourism. It is growing rapidly and changing into a great, independent industry. One of factors impresses the development of a country's sport tourism is natural resources. Nowadays regarding human's mental needs to going to nature and also considering sports done in natural areas, the economical progress, jobmaking, and making appropriate natural areas for tourists can be provided through a detailed planning and enjoying the potentials of the natural areas. Thus, this study aims to indentify the most important common natural attractions in the development of sports tourism of Iran's Northern provinces (Mazandaran, Golestan and Guilan). 118 subjects participated in this study and answered a designed questionnaire in sport tourism. Face and content validities of the questionnaire was approved by the specialists and its reliability determined by a pilot study was 0.92 (α=0.92). The findings showed that the attractions relevant to forest, beach sports, hot water and nature therapy, hill climbing and nature-rambling, hunting, climbing and caving, and winter sports respectively have the most importance in the development of sport tourism in the studied provinces. Regarding the results, the northern jungles, Khazar Lake (as the world's largest lake), coastal line between Alborz's northern ranges and Khazar's southern beaches has created a collection of the most beautiful natural landscapes. It seems, therefore, to take these potentials into account
