Iran

The meaning of the word Iran is the country of Aryans. Iranians have allways, from the ancient times, reffered to themselves as Aryans. This term has been unjustly used by Europeans since 1830s as being related to the Nordic people. This has been an attemp to link the Nordic people to the ancient cultures. (Read more about this via the link in the Favorite Links section of this site).
Iranian Aryans, of Indo-European origin, immigrated to the Iranian plateau somewhere around 1000 BC. Part of this plateau was already inhabited by the Elamites, who were of non-Indo-European and non-Semitic origin. Iranians established around 500 BC the first empire of the world which is known in the west under the name, the Persian Empire. Iranians have allways reffered to their country as Iran. Until mid 1930s, the country of Iran in the western languages was called Persia (which is actually the name of one province of Iran). From that moment it was decided for the political reasons that the Westerners should also use the local name for the country, namely Iran.
Most of the Iranians are descendents of that Aryan immigrants and speak Persian, an Indo-European language (i.e. related to the languages of the northern India and Europe), as mother tongue. Persian is also one of the official languages of Afghanistan and the official language of Tajikistan. Persian has virtually been unchanged during the last 1000 year and modern Persian-speaking people can read and understand texts from 1000 years ago without difficulty. Persian language possesses a rich literature with such world-famous poets as Rumi, Hafez, Ferdowsi, Sa'di and Nizami.
Topographically Iran has often been compared to a natural fortress. Indeed Iran is in almost all sides protected by high mountain ranges and borders the caspian sea to the north (657 km shore line) and the Persian Gulf (1.259 km shore line) and the Sea of Oman (784 km shore line) to the south. The climate in the Caspian region of Iran is humid and sub-tropical with vast and dense forests (Actually the word jungle in English is a loanword from Persian). The same is true for the high mountanious regions of western Iran (Zagros region). The rest of Iran has a variety of climates, from very cold and snowy to very hot and dry regions, providing the opportunity to ski on the mountains and sweam in the sea in the same day in many seasons. One third of Iran consists of desert. Two third is mountanious. Irans capital is the metropolis Tehran with more than 12 million inhabitants. Other important Iranian cities are Mashhad (2.5 million), Isfahan, Shiraz, Tabriz, Ahwaz, Karaj, Bandar Abbas etc. (Each of these cities has a populations of more than 1.2 millions).
Iran with its numerous historical sites and its rich culture is a paradise (also a Persian loanword in English) for the cultural tourists.
From numerous important historical sites in Iran we can mention for example:

Persepolis (ruins of the capital of the Persian Empire c. 2500 years ago near the city of Shiraz).
Naqsh-e-Jahan square and many other sites in Isfahan, a set of religious and public monuments from safavids era.
Choghazanbil temple (Elamite imperial city in 3000 years ago, near the city of Shush).

Shiz (Takht-e Solayman), one of the most important Zoroastrian sites in Iran.
These are all recognized and registered as "the worlds Civilization Heritage" by UNESCO.

Country profile:

Country name: Iran
Nationality: Iranian
Official language: Persian
Population: 70 million
Area: 1.648.195 square km
Population growth rate: 1.07%
Literacy: 85.1%
Economical growth rate: 6.5% (2001)
Number of provinces: 28
National currency: 10 Iranian Rials (IR) = 1 Toman.
Religions: Shi'a Muslim 89%, Sunni Muslim 10%, Zoroastrism, Judaism, christianity etc. 1%
Airports: 292 of which 56 passenger airports, 5 of which international.
Railroad: 7,286 km
Water ways: 904 km

Website by: Mani Parsa.