Background and Objective:. Today, most cities in the world are exposed to many crises, including environmental crises, demographic changes, physical-economic problems, poverty, lack of urban services, etc. The complex urban environment has forced thoughtful people to think about reforming and creating new urban structures in order to get rid of problems and shortcomings in achieving the highest level of life. Based on this, urban managers and planners have considered making the city smart as a necessity to remove obstacles in cities and improve life in them. A smart city is a multidimensional phenomenon that encompasses various indicators.
Methodology: This article attempts to review the concepts of smart city, its components and indicators for the city of Ardabil and analyze them. It is done through semi-structured interviews with experts and managers of 22 people in the municipality of Ardabil using random sampling methodand also through a questionnaire of Ardabil citizens using Cochran sampling method with 384 people, and the final extracted indicators were examined in the form of SWOT model.
Results and findings: The result of the position of the smart city in Ardabil city is that out of the four states of aggressive, conservative, defensive and competitive, it is in the worst possible state, that is, defensive (the confrontation of weakness and threat). It is also weak in terms of internal factors (strengths and weaknesses) and has not shown suitable conditions against external factors (opportunities and threats). According to the studies, the internal factor matrix (IE) was 0.86 and the external factor matrix (EFE) was 0.74, which is a long way from equilibrium and indicates the inappropriate position of Ardabil city from the perspective of a smart city.
Keywords: Smart city, smart city index, Swot model , Ardebil city