Urban growth is occurring at an unprecedented pace around the world, and its external effects on the environment and society are obvious. The present study aimed to identify the factors that constitute a smart city in the Isfahan metropolis. This research is of a qualitative nature. It is also of an inductive-questionnaire type. In the qualitative part, the statistical population of the study consisted of 10 experts from the Isfahan municipality as well as academic experts in the field of smart city and sustainable development. In the quantitative part, employees and managers of the Isfahan municipality were also used. Based on the simple random sampling method, 213 people were selected as samples. In this study, field and library methods were used to collect information, as well as a researcher-made questionnaire, the reliability and validity of which were examined and confirmed. The data analysis method in the qualitative section is theoretical coding derived from the grounded theory method. In the quantitative section, Spss-21 software was used to describe demographic characteristics and also describe research variables. Also, in the inferential section, tests such as one-sample t-test, structural equation modeling (confirmatory factor analysis) using SPSS-v21 and PLS software were also used to answer the research questions. The results showed that in this study, smart city as a central phenomenon has technology-oriented factors (3 items) and human-oriented factors (4 items), sustainable development as an outcome includes social (12 items), economic (6 items) and environmental (7 items) components, effective factors as causal conditions include technology factors (4 items), social factors (7 items) and management factors (3 items), strategies include empowerment (4 items) and management (7 items), context includes infrastructure (4 items) and management (4 items) and barriers include technical and technological (3 items), economic (2 items) and human (3 items).