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جمهوری اسلامی ايران
Jomhūrī-ye Eslāmī-ye Īrān
Islamic Republic of Iran
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Motto: Esteqlāl, āzādī, jomhūrī-ye eslāmī 1 (Persian)
"Independence, freedom, Islamic Republic" |
Anthem: Sorūd-e Mellī-e Īrān ²
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Capital
(and largest city) |
Tehran
 35°41′N, 51°25′E |
| Official languages |
Persian, constitutional status for regional languages such as Azeri, Kurdish, and Mazandarani, and Gilaki [1] |
| Demonym |
Iranian |
| Government |
Islamic Republic |
| - |
Supreme Leader |
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei |
| - |
President |
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad |
| Unification[2] |
| - |
Median kingdom |
625 BC[2] |
| - |
Safavid dynasty
(reestablishment) |
May 1508 |
| - |
Islamic Republic declared |
April 1, 1979 |
| Area |
| - |
Total |
1,648,195 km² (18th)
636,372 sq mi |
| - |
Water (%) |
0.7 |
| Population |
| - |
2007 (1385 AP) census |
70,472,846³ (17th) |
| - |
Density |
42/km² (163th)
109/sq mi |
| GDP (PPP) |
2007 estimate |
| - |
Total |
$752,967 billion (2007)[3]
(18th) |
| - |
Per capita |
10,624[3] (71st) |
| GDP (nominal) |
2007 estimate |
| - |
Total |
$278 billion[4] (29th) |
| - |
Per capita |
$4,119 (82nd) |
| Gini (1998) |
43.0 (medium) |
| HDI (2007) |
▲ 0.759 (medium) (94th) |
| Currency |
Iranian rial (ريال) (IRR) |
| Time zone |
IRST (UTC+3:30) |
| - |
Summer (DST) |
Iran Daylight Time (IRDT) (UTC+4:30) |
| Internet TLD |
.ir |
| Calling code |
+98 |
| 1 |
bookrags.com |
| 2 |
iranchamber.com |
| 3 |
Statistical Centre of Iran. "تغییرات جمعیت کشور طی سالهای ۱۳۳۵-۱۳۸۵" (in Persian). Retrieved on 2007-05-16. |
| 4 |
CIA Factbook |
Iran (Persian: ايران, /irɒn/↔[ʔiˈɾɒn] (help·info)), officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (Persian: جمهوری اسلامی ايران, pronounced [dʒomhuːɾije eslɒːmije iːɾɒn]), formerly known internationally as Persia until 1935, is a country in Central Eurasia, located on the northeastern shore of the Persian Gulf. The name Iran is a cognate of Aryan, and means "Land of the Aryans".[5][6][7]
The 18th largest country in the world in terms of area at 1,648,195
km², Iran has a population of over seventy million. It is a country of
special geostrategic significance due to its central location in Eurasia. Iran is bordered on the north by Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. Being a littoral state of the Caspian sea, an internal sea and condominium, Kazakhstan and Russia are also Iran's direct neighbours to the north. On the east by Afghanistan and Pakistan; on the south by the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman; and on the west by Turkey and Iraq. Tehran is the capital, largest city and the political, cultural, commercial, and industrial center of the nation. Iran is a regional power,[8][9] and occupies an important position in international energy security and world economy as a result of its large reserves of petroleum and natural gas.
Iran is home to one of the world's oldest continuous major
civilizations, with historical and urban settlements dating back to
4000 BC.[10][11][12] The Medes unified Iran into a kingdom in 625 BC[2]. They were succeeded by three Iranian dynasties, the Achaemenids, Parthians and Sassanids,
which governed Iran for more than 1000 years. After centuries of
foreign occupation and short-lived native dynasties, Iran was once
again reunified as an independent state in 1551 by the Safavid dynasty—who promoted Shi'a Islam[13] as the official religion of their empire, marking one of the most important turning points in the history of Islam.[14] Iran had been a monarchy ruled by a Shah, or emperor, almost without interruption from 1501 until the 1979 Iranian revolution, when Iran officially became an Islamic Republic on 1 April 1979.[15][16]
Iran is a founding member of the UN, NAM, OIC, and OPEC. The political system of Iran, based on the 1979 Constitution, comprises several intricately connected governing bodies. The highest state authority is the Supreme Leader. Shi'a Islam is the official religion, and Persian is the official language.[17]
Etymology
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- See also: Iran naming dispute
The term Iran (ایران) in modern Persian derives from the Proto-Iranian term Aryānām first attested in Zoroastrianism's Avesta tradition.[18] Ariya- and Airiia- are also attested as an ethnic designator in Achaemenid inscriptions. The term Ērān from Middle Persian Ērān, Pahlavi ʼyrʼn, is found at the inscription that accompanies the investiture relief of Ardashir I at Naqsh-e Rustam.[19] In this inscription, the king's appellation in Middle Persian contains the term ērān (Pahlavi: ʼryʼn), while in the Parthian language inscription that accompanies it, Iran is mentioned as aryān. In Ardashir's time ērān retained this meaning, denoting the people rather than the state.
Notwithstanding this inscriptional use of ērān to refer to the Iranian peoples, the use of ērān to refer to the geographical empire is also attested in the early Sassanid period. An inscription of Shapur I, Ardashir's son and immediate successor, apparently "includes in Ērān regions such as Armenia and the Caucasus which were not inhabited predominantly by Iranians."[20] The Sassanids called Iran Erânshahr or Iranshahr, 
, "Dominion of the Aryans", (i.e. of Iranians). In Kartir's inscriptions the high priest includes the same regions in his list of provinces of the antonymic Anērān.[20] Both ērān and aryān comes from the Proto-Iranian term Aryānām, (Land) of the (Iranian) Aryas. The word and concept of Airyanem Vaejah is present in the name of the country Iran (Lit. Land of the Aryans) inasmuch as Iran (Ērān) is the modern Persian form of the word Aryānā.
In the outside world, the official name of Iran from 6th century BC until 1935 was Persia or similar foreign language translations (La Perse, Das Persien, Perzie, etc.). In that year Reza Shah
asked the international community to call the country by the name
"Iran". A few years later some Persian scholars protested to the
government that changing the name had separated the country from its
past, so in 1959 Mohammad Reza Shah announced that both terms could
officially be used interchangeably. Now both terms are common, but
"Iran" is used mostly in the modern political context and "Persia" in a
cultural and historical context. Since the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the official name of the country has been the "Islamic Republic of Iran."
Geography and climate
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- See also: Agriculture in Iran and Wildlife of Iran
Iran is the eighteenth largest country in the world after Libya and before Mongolia.[21] Its area roughly equals that of the
Classical
from 
