Iran (officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (Persian: جمهوری اسلامی ايران), 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".

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. As Iran is a littoral state of the Caspian Sea, which is an inland sea and condominium, Kazakhstan and Russia are also Iran's direct neighbors to the north. Iran is bordered 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, the country's largest city and the political, cultural, commercial, and industrial center of the nation. Iran is a regional power, 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. The Medes unified Iran into a kingdom in 625 BC. 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 1501 by the Safavid dynasty— who promoted Shia Islam as the official religion of their empire, marking one of the most important turning points in the history of Islam. 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.

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. Shia Islam is the official religion and Persian is the official language.

BASIC FACTS
Official name: Islamic Republic of Iran
Capital: Tehrān
Area 1,648,000 sq km 636,300 sq mi

PEOPLE
Population 65,875,223 (2008 estimate)
Population growth rate 0.79 percent (2008 estimate)
Projected population in 2025 76,779,032 (2025 estimate)
Projected population in 2050 81,490,039 (2050 estimate)
Population density 40 persons per sq km (2008 estimate)
104 persons per sq mi (2008 estimate)
Share urban 68 percent (2005 estimate)
Share rural 32 percent (2005 estimate)

Largest cities, with population
Tehrān 6,758,845 (2006)
Mashhad 2,926,000 (2007 estimate)
Eşfahān 1,001,000 (2007 estimate)
Shīrāz 1,263,244 (2006)
Karaj 941,000 (2007 estimate)

Ethnic groups
Persian 60 percent
Azerbaijani and other Turkic 25 percent
Kurdish 7 percent
Lur 2 percent
Baluch, Turkmen, and other 6 percent

Languages
Persian (Farsi) and Persian dialects 58 percent
Turkic and Turkic dialects 26 percent
Kurdish 9 percent
Luri, Baluchi, Arabic, Turkmen, and other 7 percent

Religious affiliations
Shiie Muslim 93 percent
Sunni Muslim 6 percent
Zoroastrian, Jewish and Christian 1 percent

See Also
General Information
Persian Language
Persian Art
Iran Map