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Topics:
Land and Resources
Soils and Water
Climate
Drainage
Vegetation and Animal Life
Resources
People
Religion
Demography
Education and Health
The Arts
Economic Activity
Manufacturing
Agriculture and Fishing
Transportation
Trade
Government
History

Land and Resources
Iran is part of the Alpine-Himalayan mountain system. It consists of a large central plateau or highland rimmed by mountain ranges to the north and west. North of the plateau are the Elburz Mountains; the Talish Mountains are to the northwest and the Kopet Dagh to the northeast. Mount Demavend (5,671 m/18,606 ft), an extinct volcano northeast of Tehran in the Elburz Mountains, is the highest point in Iran. The Zagros Mountains rise in the southwest and are largely continuous with the mountains of eastern Turkey and the Caucasus. The mountainous regions of Iran are especially prone to earthquakes. Lowlands amount at most to some 7% of Iran's total area and are located on the shores of the Caspian Sea and the Gulf of Oman. About half of the country consists of an arid central plateau with elevations ranging from 600 to 900 m (about 2,000 to 3,000 ft). The plateau includes the uninhabited sand desert and salt basins of central and eastern Iran known as the Kavir (Dasht-e Kavir and Dasht-e Lut).

Soils and Water
Brown forest soils found along the coasts of the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf are used extensively for farming. Fertile soils from the alluvial river valleys, especially around the Karun River and the Shatt-al-Arab, are also suitable for farming. In this arid region, however, water availability rather than quality of soil is decisive for the development of agriculture. Irrigation is essential for agriculture in most parts of Iran because rainfall is limited, and an ingenious system of wells connected by underground tunnels known as qanats is widely used for bringing water from the foot of the mountains into farmlands on the plateau.

Climate
Iran's varied continental climate is characterized by extremes of both temperature and precipitation. Summers are very hot along the Persian Gulf, where temperatures of 50 degrees C (122 degrees F) are not uncommon. Inland, daytime highs also occasionally reach this level, but the temperature drops quickly at night. Except along the Caspian and Persian Gulf shores, winters are cold. Precipitation ranges from more than 1,270 mm (50 in) annually in the northwestern Zagros Mountains and in the Elburz Mountains to less than 50 mm (2 in) in the southeastern part of the central plateau.

Drainage
Iran lacks major rivers. The Karun, which flows from the Zagros Mountains into the Shatt-al-Arab, is the most important and only navigable river in Iran. Other major perennial rivers are the Atrak, the Safid Rud, and the Araks (Aras), all of which flow into the Caspian Sea, and the Karkheh, which flows into the swamps in the Mesopotamian marshes. Central and eastern Iran are areas of interior drainage. The mountain ranges enclose a number of salt lake basins similar to those in the Rocky Mountain region of the United States. The largest salt lakes are Lake Urmia (Orumieh) in the northwest and Lake Namak on the northeastern edge of the Kavir near the cities of Qum and Kashan.

Vegetation and Animal Life
About 11% of Iran, in the mountains bordering the Caspian Sea, is covered with mostly deciduous forest. Many kinds of trees and shrubs also cover parts of the Zagros Mountains. Drier areas generally lack vegetation. Poplars, tamarisks, date palms, myrtles, and mulberries are common trees in the oases. Plateau fauna include wild boar, foxes, and jackals and numerous smaller animals; a few lions and tigers are found in wilder areas. Lizards and various other creatures adapted to arid conditions live in the drier areas.

Resources
Iran has extremely rich mineral resources, especially petroleum and natural gas. Petroleum was discovered in Khuzestan province in 1908 under a concession to a British national who established the Anglo-Persian (later, Anglo-Iranian) Oil Company; extraction began the following year. Oil production in Iran thus began long before it did in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries. With an output of over 3.5 million barrels per day, Iran remains one of the most important members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Most oil fields are still located in the southwest, but some are offshore under the Persian Gulf, and extensive deposits have been found in other parts of Iran. Natural gas is as yet underutilized commercially, but its supplies are also enormous (about 14 trillion cu m/500 trillion cu ft) and constitute, after Russia's, the world's second-largest reserves. Iron and coal deposits were developed in the 1970s for use in the new steel industry, and significant deposits of chromite, copper, lead, zinc, and salt are only beginning to be exploited commercially.

People
Aryan tribes migrated into the Iranian plateau in the 2d millennium BC. Iran's official language, Persian (Farsi), is an Indo-European language, although it has been written in modified Arabic script since the 10th century. The Gilani and Mazandarani dialects, spoken by the inhabitants of the provinces around the Caspian Sea, and the Kurdish, Luri, and Baluchi dialects are also Indo-European. Iran was invaded by Arab tribespeople in the 7th century and by Turko-Mongolian tribes in the 11th to 14th centuries. Turkic dialects, belonging to the Ural-Altaic language group are spoken by the Qashqai in the southwest and the Turkoman (see Turkmen) in the northeast, but the most important of these is Azerbaijani Turkish, which is spoken throughout the northwestern provinces. Arabic is spoken in Khuzestan and by some tribespeople in Fars. Iran's long history of continuous administration and independent rule, shared culture, and common religion, however, have given the large majority of Iranians a strong sense of national identity.
By 1920 nomadic pastoralist tribes, which included both distinct ethnolinguistic minorities and government-created federations, constituted over a quarter of Iran's population. Their number declined sharply as a result of government repression and forced settlement in the 1920s and 1930s. Continued pressure as well as the lure of the cities and settled life have resulted in a further sharp decline since the 1960s. Pastoralist tribes (including many who have ceased nomadic migrations) accounted for only 2.3% of the population in 1987. The most important tribal groups are the Kurds, who live mainly in the province of Kurdestan in the northern Zagros region, the Lurs and the Bakhtiari, who live in the southern Zagros region, the Qashqai in Fars, the Turkoman in the northeast, and the Baluchi (see Baluchistan) in the southeast.

Religion
Some 99% of Iranians are Muslims, over 93% belonging to the Shiite branch of Islam and under 6% to the Sunni branch (see Sunnites). The latter group includes many of the Kurds, Baluchi, and Turkoman. Iran is the only Muslim country where Shiism has been (since 1501) the official state religion. Mashhad and Qum are important Shiite religious centers with holy shrines frequently visited by pilgrims. The Baha'is, who branched off from Shiism in the 19th century and comprise some 0.6% of the population, are persecuted as apostate by the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Armenian Christians, comprising about 0.5% of the population, are the next-largest minority religious group. Smaller communities of Jews, Zoroastrians (see Zoroastrianism), and Nestorian Christians (see Nestorian church), each representing about 0.1% of the population, are officially recognized as religious minorities. There is, however, evidence of political pressure on the Christians, the Zoroastrians, members of the Shaykhi branch of Shiism, and those inclined toward Sufism.

Demography
The population of Iran is concentrated in the region around the Caspian Sea in the north, the Atrak River valley in the northeast, the mountain valleys in the northwest, and the Karun River valley in the southwest. Iranian cities have grown very rapidly during the last three decades. Tehran, the capital, is by far the largest city, and Mashhad, Isfahan, Tabriz, and Shiraz all have populations of over one million. The nation's population grew rapidly during the 1960s and 1970s and increased sharply after the revolution, reaching 3.9% in 1988; growth has since been reduced. The total population trebled between 1960 and 1995.

Education and Health
Education is free and compulsory for all children from the age of 7 to 12, and many new schools have been built since the revolution. Nevertheless, owing to the demographic explosion, overcrowded school facilities are often used in two shifts. After the revolution, textbooks were rewritten to place greater emphasis on religion and traditional values. The country's universities, the oldest and largest of which is the University of Tehran, were purged after the revolution but have been expanding since 1983. Health care has improved in the last four decades but remains inadequate, especially in the countryside. Qualified medical professionals are in short supply, and about 15% of the physicians working for the Ministry of Health are foreigners.

The Arts
Iran has a very rich culture. Persian literature has flourished for over a thousand years, with poetry as the most important art form. Music and architecture are also historically important, as are calligraphy and miniature painting. Iran also is famous for its crafts, including ceramics, silver and gold metalwork, and, above all, Persian carpets. The traditional crafts, however, have declined with industrialization. You can see some pictures about Nastaligh (Art of writing).
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Economic Activity
The Iranian economy remained overwhelmingly agrarian until the end of World War I. In the 1920s and 1930s, Reza Shah Pahlavi built the infrastructure of the modern economy and began a program of industrialization under state ownership. A second wave of industrialization (1963-73) was helped by a steady increase in Iran's oil revenues. The state invested heavily in infrastructure, while the private sector took the lead in industry and banking. After the revolution, banks and most private industries were nationalized.

Manufacturing
The oil industry, nationalized in 1951 and now including refineries and petrochemicals, is by far Iran's most important industry. The oil refinery in Abadan was the largest in the world until it was destroyed during the Iran-Iraq War (1980-88). It has since been rebuilt, but its capacity has not reached the previous level. Manufacturing provides a larger share of the GNP than agriculture, although it employs fewer people. After the Islamic revolution in 1979, all large industrial plants were nationalized. Government efforts at privatization in the 1990s have so far had little effect, and inefficient state-managed industries remain dependent on direct and indirect government subsidies. The textile industry is Iran's oldest and remains important. Steel manufacturing, begun in 1973, is linked to the production of automobiles, buses, trucks, tractors, refrigerators, and electronic machinery.

Agriculture and Fishing
Because of its general aridity and mountainous topography, only some 11 or 12% of Iran's land is suitable for farming. About 40% of this land is irrigated, and more than half of it is left fallow at any one time. During the land reform of 1962-71, large estates of absentee landlords were distributed to nearly 2 million sharecroppers. A class of small proprietors has since been consolidated, but most farms remain small and inefficient, and agricultural output has not kept pace with the demands of the rapidly growing population. Food imports have consequently risen sharply. The raising of sheep and cattle, traditionally important in the Iranian economy, has lost its significance as a result of the dwindling number of nomadic tribespeople. Commercial fishing is important along the Persian Gulf and in the Caspian Sea, the source of Iran's famous caviar.

Transportation
Railroads serve the major cities of Tehran, Mashhad, Tabriz, Qum, Isfahan, Ahvaz, Bandar Khomeini, and Khorramshahr. The main highway extends from the Turkish border to Mashhad and continues to the Afghan border. Another highway connects Tehran to Qum and continues to Isfahan and Shiraz. The major ports on the Persian Gulf are Khorramshahr, Bandar Khomeini, Bandar Abbas, and Bushehr. Smaller ports are located on the Caspian Sea. Khark Island in the Persian Gulf is the main terminus for oil exports.

Trade
Oil and petrochemical products account for over 90% of Iran's exports. Non-oil exports include carpets, cotton, dried fruits, and pistachios. The United States was Iran's main trading partner before the Islamic revolution, but it has since been replaced by Western Europe and Japan. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Iran considerably expanded its trade with the neighboring former Soviet republics of Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, and Tajikistan.

Government
The government of Iran is the first theocratic republic in the world. The constitution of the Islamic Republic gives its Leader, the Faqih, extensive religious and secular powers, including the right to appoint the commanders of the armed forces and the head of the judiciary and to confirm the elected president. Legislative power is vested in the Majlis, whose members are elected every 4 years. All Majlis legislation, however, must be in conformity with Islam as determined by the six clerical jurists of the Council of Guardians, which automatically reviews all legislation. The constitution was amended in 1989 to strengthen the presidency by abolishing the office of the prime minister. The Council for the Determination of the Interest of the Islamic Republic, whose members are appointed by the Faqih, was set up to arbitrate in cases of deadlock between the Majlis and the Council of Guardians. The clerical Assembly of Experts has the power to elect and dismiss the Leader of the Islamic Republic (the Faqih).

History
Iran's documented history can easily be traced to the empire of the Medes (see Media) in western Iran and Asia Minor in the 7th and 6th centuries BC (see Persia, ancient) and assumes great importance in world history with the establishment, in 549 BC, of the Achaemenid empire by the ruler of Persia, Cyrus the Great. The Achaemenid empire was extended to Egypt by Cyrus's son, Cambyses II, and was consolidated as a world state under Darius I (r. 522-486 BC). It was overthrown in 330 BC by Alexander the Great, and after his death Iran became part of the Seleucid kingdom founded by one of his generals, Seleucus I Nicator. About 238 BC, the Parthian empire (see Parthia) was established under the Arsacid dynasty in Bactria and northeastern Iran. In the late 2d century BC, the Arsacids recovered many of the dominions of the Persian empire. In AD c.224, the Parthian empire was overthrown by Ardashir, a Persian local ruler who claimed Achaemenid descent. The dynasty he founded, the Sassanians, ruled Iran until the Arab conquest, which began in c.637.
Iran was gradually converted to Islam by the conquering Arabs and incorporated into the empire of the caliphs (see caliphate). After the Abbasid revolution (750), Iranians became prominent in the caliphal government and administration. Independent dynasties appeared in different parts of Iran in the latter part of the 9th and through the 10th and 11th centuries. The Seljuk Turks invaded Iran in the mid-11th century, defeated the Byzantine emperor in 1071, opening Anatolia to settlement by Turkish tribes, and established a vast empire that extended to the Mediterranean Sea. Despite the rise of local dynasties, Iran had remained under the suzerainty of the caliphs. Most of Iran was conquered by the Mongols under Genghis Khan by 1220, and Genghis's grandson, Hulegu, overthrew the caliphate altogether in 1258 and established an independent Mongol dynasty, known as the Il-Khanids, in Iran. The Turko-Mongolian domination of Iran continued under Timur (1381-1405), whose world empire fragmented after his death, and under the Turkoman dynasties of western Iran to the end of the 15th century.
In 1501, Shah Ismail, the leader of a Sufi millenarian movement, founded the Safavid empire, and established Shiism as its official religion. Shiism was spread among the Iranian masses under the Safavid dynasty. The Safavid state was consolidated by Abbas I (r. 1587-1629), who chose the city of Isfahan as his capital. The Safavid government was overthrown by Sunni Afghan tribesmen from the eastern periphery of the empire in 1722, and Iran succumbed to periodic internecine warfare during the rest of the 18th century. After the restoration of a unified state under the Qajar dynasty (1794-1925), the Shiite hierarchy emerged as a power independent of the state, and its highest ranking members assumed the title of Ayatollah (sign of God) by the beginning of the 20th century.
Between 1811 and 1827, Iran lost a series of wars with Russia, and during the rest of the 19th century it came under increasing pressure from Russia in the north and from Britain, which was concerned with the security of its Indian empire and its trade in the Persian Gulf. The Anglo-Russian Entente of 1907 (see Triple Entente) divided the country into Russian, neutral, and British zones of influence. Iran nevertheless maintained its independence. Popular protest against the decadent Qajar government, which had begun in 1890 under the leadership of the Shiite hierarchy in opposition to a British tobacco concession, was revived in 1905 and forced the ailing shah to order the election of a Majlis (parliament) and grant Iran a constitution in 1906. There followed five years of political struggle, known as the Constitutional Revolution, between the new shah, supported by Russia, and the Majlis.
The attempts of constitutional governments to implement administrative, judicial, and military reforms were frustrated and central authority fell apart. After a coup d'etat in February 1921, Reza Khan, an officer of the Cossack brigade, became commander-in-chief of the armed forces and quickly consolidated his power. In 1925, the Majlis deposed the last Qajar shah and elevated Reza Khan to the throne as Reza Shah Pahlavi. Reza Shah, who had already begun to implement military and administrative reforms as prime minister, created a modern standing army out of the ragtag military forces and brought all of Iran under control of the central government. He set up a centralized civil service and a national educational system with schools for boys and girls and established the University of Tehran in 1934. In 1941, however, Reza Shah was forced by the Allies to abdicate in favor of his son, Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, who reigned until 1979.
Between 1941 and 1953, the Majlis, which had been turned into a rubber stamp by Reza Shah, became highly assertive and caused frequent changes of government and political instability. In March 1951, the Majlis nationalized the oil industry, and Muhammad Mosaddeq became prime minister. Britain refused to accept the nationalization and severed its diplomatic ties with Iran. In 1953, the United States acquiesced in a British plan for a coup to overthrow Mossadeq. The coup was carried out on Aug. 19, 1953, and the shah, who had fled the country a few days earlier, returned. In 1961, under U.S. pressure, the shah appointed Ali Amini prime minister. Amini's minister of agriculture, Hasan Arsanjani, launched the land reform of 1962 and distributed the largest estates among landless peasants. The shah continued the land reform and combined it with other measures, including suffrage for women, and submitted his reform package to a referendum in January 1963. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini led the clerical opposition to the shah's reform program. Khomeini was arrested in June, and riots following his arrest were suppressed with considerable loss of life. The shah carried out his reform program, while a series of developmental plans helped to create impressive economic growth during the next decade. The regime, however, became increasingly repressive. The shah became dictatorial, relied heavily on his secret police (known by its Persian acronym, SAVAK), and turned the Majlis once more into a rubber stamp. He played a leading role in the quadrupling of world oil prices by OPEC in 1973-74, but his attempt to transform Iran into a world power overnight resulted in massive rural-to-urban migration, inflation, bottlenecks, and economic dislocation, thus creating widespread discontent that fueled the revolution of 1979.
All political groups opposed to the shah unified under the leadership of Khomeini as massive demonstrations and strikes paralyzed the government. The country was put under martial law. Khomeini appointed a Revolutionary Council and refused to negotiate with the shah and his aides. The shah left Iran on Jan. 16, 1979. Khomeini returned from exile to a tumultuous welcome on February 1, and the Islamic Republic of Iran was proclaimed on February 12. Khomeini appointed Mehdi Bazargan as prime minister of a provisional government that included representatives of the liberal and nationalist elements of the revolutionary coalition, but a system of dual power immediately emerged, with the revolutionary committee and the newly created revolutionary guards (Pasdaran) acting independently of the provisional government. A clerically dominated Assembly of Experts elected in place of a constituent assembly bypassed a draft constitution submitted by the provisional government and proposed a theocratic government based on the Mandate of the Faqih, with an elected parliament and president. This was approved by a referendum in December 1979.
The United States was embroiled in the Islamic revolution because of its longtime support for the shah and close technical support of his army. In November 1979, while plans for theocratic government were being unveiled against the wishes of the liberal and nationalist members of the provisional government, the U.S. embassy was seized by militant Islamic students. Khomeini supported the takeover and dismissed Bazargan, precipitating an international crisis that finally ended with the release of the hostages in January 1981 (see Iranian hostage crisis). Meanwhile, Abolhasan Bani-Sadr, a moderate like Bazargan, was elected president in January 1980. Power struggles between Bani-Sadr and the revolutionary structures of power on the one hand and the Islamic Republic party (which dominated the newly elected Majlis) on the other continued until Bani-Sadr's impeachment by the Majlis and his dismissal in June 1981, when the revolutionary power struggle moved into the streets and entered its most violent phase. Over 70 leading members of the Islamic Republic party were killed in an explosion a week later, and new president Muhammad Ali Rajai and new prime minister Muhammad Javad Bahonar died the following month in another explosion, which was followed by a string of assassinations of prominent clerics. In the revolutionary terror, which did not abate until early 1983, thousands of men and women belonging to rival revolutionary groups were executed or killed in streetfights. The most notable of these groups was the Mujahedin, Islamic radicals who supported Bani-Sadr and to whom the explosions and assassinations were attributed.
Following a border dispute, Iraqi troops invaded Iran in 1980, beginning the Iran-Iraq War that continued until a UN-mediated cease-fire agreement came into effect in August 1988. Radicals in Iran's revolutionary elite favored the export of the Islamic revolution, and established links with Hezbollah in Lebanon and underground Islamic revolutionary groups in Iraq and elsewhere. In what became known as the Iran-contra affair, the United States agreed to sell arms to Iran secretly for use in the war with Iraq, but the news of the agreement was leaked by dissatisfied members of the revolutionary elite in 1986.
Hojatolislam Ali Khamenei, who had been elected president of Iran in 1981 after the assassination of Rajai, was reelected in 1985. Khomeini, who had been designated Faqih and Leader of the Islamic Republic, died on June 3, 1989. The clerical Assembly of Experts swiftly chose Khamenei as his successor. The energetic speaker of the Majlis, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, was elected president in July 1989. Iran remained neutral during the 1991 Persian Gulf War and was credited with putting pressure on Shiite militants in Lebanon that led to the gradual release of Western hostages held there in 1991. The U.S. government, however, did not opt for improved relations. Rafsanjani, who was reelected in 1993, sought with some success to end Iran's diplomatic isolation, although the United States imposed new restrictions on trade with Iran in 1995. He also embarked on a less successful program of economic reform designed to strengthen the private sector and increase foreign investment.

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