Iran

Iran: capital Tehran, population 92.4M, area 1,648,195 km². The 17th most populous country, in Asia. Facts, map, neighbours and more.

Iran occupies a high plateau between Mesopotamia, Central Asia, the Caspian and the Persian Gulf. Its material record runs from Achaemenid inscriptions and Sasanian foundations to Safavid squares and underground qanats. Persian poetry, equinox celebrations, geometric gardens and illustrated books turn that long chronology into practices that can still be read, heard and walked through.

• After Cyrus captured Babylon in 539 BCE, the Cyrus Cylinder was buried as an Akkadian cuneiform foundation deposit recording temple restoration and the return of displaced peoples.
• Darius I's Behistun inscription, carved around 520 BCE in Old Persian, Elamite and Babylonian, later provided a key for deciphering cuneiform writing.
• Ardashir I founded the Sasanian Empire after defeating the Parthian king Artabanus IV at Hormozdgan in 224; the dynasty endured until 651.
• The Persian Constitutional Revolution of 1905–1911 produced the 1906 constitution and Iran's first parliament, the Majles, before the Qajar ruler who signed it died.

• Ferdowsi completed the second version of the Shahnameh in 1010 after decades of work, shaping roughly 50,000 rhyming couplets into a single epic.
• Avicenna's five-volume Canon of Medicine organised diagnosis, drugs and treatments around 1025 and remained a standard text at some European universities until 1650.
• At Isfahan in 1079, Omar Khayyam helped institute the Jalali calendar, using a 33-year intercalation cycle to track the solar year with exceptional precision.
• Maryam Mirzakhani received the 2014 Fields Medal for work on Riemann surfaces and moduli spaces, becoming both its first woman and first Iranian recipient.

• Persepolis rises on a 125,000-square-metre terrace begun by Darius I around 518 BCE; delegations carrying gifts still line the stone stairways of the Apadana.
• Naqsh-e Jahan Square was laid out between 1598 and 1629 as a 560-by-160-metre rectangle linking Isfahan's palace, royal mosques and bazaar.
• Gonabad's Qasabeh qanat, built between 700 and 500 BCE, links 427 wells across 33,113 metres to carry groundwater without pumps.
• The Hyrcanian forests run roughly 850 kilometres along the Caspian's southern shore and preserve broad-leaved ecosystems that developed over 25 to 50 million years.

• Nowruz begins at the spring equinox; an Iranian haft-sin table arranges seven symbolic items whose Persian names start with the letter sin.
• The chahar bagh garden divides land into four quarters with crossing water channels; UNESCO's Persian Garden inscription links nine examples across nine provinces.
• Inside a zurkhaneh, athletes exercise in an octagonal sunken pit while a morshed marks movements with a drum, bell and recited Persian poetry; UNESCO listed the ritual in 2010.
• The Shahnameh made for Shah Tahmasp originally contained 759 pages and 258 painted miniatures before it was presented to Ottoman Sultan Selim II in 1568.

What is the capital of Iran?

The capital of Iran is Tehran.

What is the population of Iran?

Iran has about 92.4M people — the 17th most populous country in the world.

How big is Iran?

Iran covers 1,648,195 km², making it the 17th largest country by area.

Which region is Iran in?

Iran is in Southern Asia, Asia.