About Iran

Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran since 1980, is a country in Western Asia. Comprising a land area of 1,648,195 km2 (636,372 sq mi), it is the second-largest nation in the Middle East and the 18th-largest in the world; with over 75 million inhabitants, Iran is the world's 17th-most-populous nation. Its neighbors are Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Armenia on the north, with Kazakhstan and Russia across the Caspian Sea, Afghanistan and Pakistan on the east, Turkey and Iraq on the west, and on the south it is bordered by the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. Tehran is the capital, the country's largest city and the political, cultural, commercial and industrial center of the nation. Iran holds an important position in international energy security and world economy as a result of its large reserves of petroleum and natural gas.

History

Recent archaeological studies indicate that as early as 10,000 BC, people lived on the southern shores of the Caspian, one of the few regions of the world which according to scientists escaped the Ice Age. They were probably the first men in the history of mankind to engage in agriculture and animal husbandry. Iran is home to one of the world's oldest civilizations beginning with the formation of the Elamite kingdom in 2800 BCE. The Iranian Medes unified the country into the first of many empires in 625 BCE, after which it became the dominant cultural and political power in the region. Iran reached the pinnacle of its power during the Achaemenid Empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BCE which was the largest empire the world had yet seen.

Language and literature

Official language (of Iran) is Persian. Persian serves as a lingua franca in Iran and most publications and broadcastings are in this language. Next to Persian, there are many publications and broadcastings in other relatively popular languages of Iran such as Azeri, Kurdish and even in less popular ones such as Arabic and Armenian. Many languages originated in Iran, but Persian is the most used language. Persian belongs to Iranian branch of the Indo-European family of languages. The oldest records in Old Persian date to the Achaemenid Empire, and examples of Old Persian has been found in present-day Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Egypt. Persian is spoken today primarily in Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan, but was historically a more widely understood language in an area ranging from the Middle East to India, significant populations of speakers in other Persian Gulf countries, as well as large communities around the World. Persian, until recent centuries, was culturally and historically one of the most prominent languages of the Middle East and regions beyond. Persian scholars were prominent in both Turkish and Indian courts during the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries in composing dictionaries and grammatical works. The name of the modern Persian language is sometimes mentioned as Farsi in English texts.

Persian literature

Human beings are members of a whole,
In creation of one essence and soul.
If one member is afflicted with pain,
Other members uneasy will remain.
If you have no sympathy for human pain,
The name of human you cannot retain.
– A poem by the Persian poet Sa’adi (1210 – 1290)
gracing the entrance of the Hall of Nations of the
United Nations building in New York City

Persian literature is one of the world's oldest literatures. It spans two-and-a-half millennia, though much of the pre-Islamic material has been lost. While initially overshadowed by Arabic during the Umayyad and early Abbasid caliphates, New Persian soon became a literary language again of the Central Asian lands. The rebirth of the language in its new form is often accredited to Ferdowsi, and their generation, as they used pre-Islamic nationalism as a conduit to revive the language and customs of ancient Persia. With Ferdowsi's immortal poem, the Shahnameh epic poetry rose to the height of its achievement almost at its beginning. Hailed as the greatest monument of Persian language and one of the major world epics, it consists of some fifty thousand couplets relating the history of the Iranian nation.

Religion

The official state religion is Islam.

Constitution

The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran advances the cultural, social, political, and economic institutions of Iranian society based on Islamic principles and norms. The supreme leader great Ayatollah sayyid Ali Khamenei is the highest official State authority. Next to the Leader, the President shall be the highest official State authority who is responsible for the implementation of the Constitution and, as the Chief Executive, for the exercise of the executive powers, with the exception of those matters that directly relate to the Leader. The President shall be elected by the direct vote of the people for a four-year term of office. His consecutive re-election shall be allowed only for one term.

Iranian Calendar

Iranian official calendar, regulate according to Solar year & Iranian months.21 March, equal 1th Farvardin, is beginning of Iranian New Year (NOWRUZ)

Culture

Iranian culture has long been a predominant culture of the Middle East and Central Asia, with Persian considered the language of intellectuals during much of the 2nd millennium, and the language of religion and the populace before that. The Sassanid influence carried forward to the Islamic world. Much of what later became known as Islamic learning, such as philology, literature, jurisprudence, philosophy, medicine, architecture and the sciences were based on some of the practices taken from the Sassanid Persians to the broader Muslim world.

International Registered Monuments

Persepolis, Founded by Darius I in 518 B.C., Persepolis was the capital of the Achaemenid Empire. Tchogha Zanbil, Takht-e Soleyman, Bam and its Cultural Landscape, Pasargadae, Soltaniyeh, Bisotun, Meidan Emam, Armenian Monastic Ensembles of Iran.