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Fast Facts

  •   Official Name:  Islamic Republic of Iran
  •   Capital:  Tehran
  •   Population:  82,913,906 (2019)
  •   Official Language:  Persian 
  •   Currency:  Iranian rial (IRR)
  •   Form of Government:  Theocratic republic
  •   Climate:  Mostly arid or semiarid, subtropical along Caspian coast
  •   Total Area:  636,369 square miles (1,648,195 square kilometers)
  •   Highest Point:   Kuh- e Damavand at 18,454 feet (5,625 meters) 
  •   Lowest Point:  Caspian Sea at 92 feet (-28 meters)

IranInfo

The Land

 

  •   636,000 square miles
  •   The seventeenth largest country in the world
  •   Mostly deserts : over 700 miles from the northwest to southeast
  •   But also mountain chains:  Alborz : To the north of the country: 300 miles in length.  Zāgros : consists of a broad band of parallel ranges

 Climate

 

  •   Shows great variation: ranges from semi-arid to subtropical
  •   In the northwest: winters are cold with heavy snowfall and subfreezing temperatures. Spring and fall are relatively mild, summers are dry and hot
  •   In the South: winters are mild and the summers are very hot. Along the Persian gulf, the extreme summer heat is accompanied by high humidity
  •   On the plateau: aridity combined with high elevation produces a very rigorous continental-type climate, with great variation in temperature between seasons and even between day and night.
 

 Demography

 
  •   Population: ~ 83 million (2019)
  •   Nineteenth largest country in terms of population
  •  Most of the  population are moslems
  •   Not homogeneous in terms of language
  •   Few people are monolingual

History

  •   The first people inhabited the land as early as 13,000 b.c.
  •   Elamites : First kingdom in approximately 2700 b.c. (Along the Kārun River)
    •   A major power during the period 1500–1100 b.c.
    •   Founded the first known civilization in Iran, but they were not ethnically “Iranian” a nd their language was different
  • Then came  Aryans (from a word probably meaning “noble”)
  •   Speaking languages belonging to the Iranian group
  •   These tribes reached the Zagros by the beginning of the first millennium b.c.
  •   Most powerful tribe: Medes
  •   Formed a kingdom with a capital at Ecbatana (modern Hamadān  in the central Zagros)
  •   Persians : Another Iranian tribe settled in the southern areas of the Zagros
  •   A marriage between the Medes and the Persians (600–559 b.c. )

  - Daughter of the Median King ( Mandane ) to the Persian king (Cambyses I)

  - Child: Cyrus the Great

  - 549 b.c. : Cyrus created a unified Persian-Median empire with himself as “great king, king of kings, king of the lands.”