Iran

Iran is a big country in Asia.

It has tall mountains and dry, sandy deserts. A big sea lies to the north. More sea water lies to the south. The capital city is called Tehran.

Iran is a country in southwestern Asia. Its middle is a high, dry plateau, a wide area of flat land raised far above the sea, and huge mountain ranges stand all around it. Most people live around the edges of this plateau, where there is more water.

For a very long time the land was called Persia, and many old palaces, gardens and bazaars still stand there. About 92 million people lived in Iran in 2025. Its capital is Tehran, a huge city at the foot of the Alborz Mountains.

Iran covers about 1,648,000 square kilometers of southwestern Asia. Britannica describes it as mountainous, arid and ethnically diverse: a central desert plateau, ringed on all sides by high ranges that are crossed only through high passes, with most of the population living on the plateau's edges. Most of the country lies above 460 meters, and one-sixth of it is higher than 1,980 meters.

The region was traditionally known as Persia, with a distinctive culture dating to the Achaemenian period, which began in 550 BCE. The World Bank estimated its population at 92,417,681 in 2025. The capital, Tehran, is a sprawling city at the southern foot of the Alborz Mountains, and Isfahan and Shiraz combine modern buildings with landmarks from the past.

Tehran is the biggest city in Iran.

Snowy mountains rise behind it. Isfahan has a giant square with gardens and blue domes. Old palaces and a busy covered market are famous too.

Tehran is Iran's capital and largest city. It became the capital more than 200 years ago and grew from a small city into a giant one, with about 8.7 million people in the city in 2016. Isfahan, about 400 kilometers to the south, is famous for its buildings.

In Isfahan, Naqsh-e Jahan Square was built in the early 1600s, with two-story arcades on every side and mosques with tiled domes. In Tabriz, in the northwest, a huge covered bazaar made of brick buildings was already famous more than 700 years ago, and UNESCO calls it one of the most important trading centers on the Silk Road.

Tehran, the capital since Āghā Moḥammad Khān established it there more than 200 years ago, had 8,693,706 people in the city in 2016 and sits in an urban region of about 14 million (Britannica). Isfahan, about 400 km south, is the second most important city and is famed for its architecture.

Naqsh-e Jahan Square in Isfahan was built by Shah Abbas I at the start of the 17th century and inscribed by UNESCO in 1979; two-story arcades link the Royal Mosque, the Mosque of Sheykh Lotfollah, the Qaysariyyeh portico and a 15th-century Timurid palace. Tabriz's historic bazaar, a World Heritage Site since 2010, is a series of interconnected, covered brick structures; UNESCO calls it one of the most important commercial centers on the Silk Road. The desert city of Yazd, 270 km southeast of Isfahan, keeps its earthen houses, bazaars and bathhouses, and water reaches it through a qanat system (inscribed 2017).

Iran has very high mountains.

The tallest one is called Damavand. Its top is covered in snow. In the middle of Iran there are big, dry deserts. Near the northern sea, it is green and rainy.

Two great mountain ranges shape Iran. The Alborz Mountains run along the Caspian Sea in the north, and the Zagros Mountains stretch from the northwest to the Strait of Hormuz in the south. The highest peak, snowy Mount Damavand, is an old volcano more than 5,600 meters tall that last erupted about 7,300 years ago.

Inside the mountain ring lie two big deserts, the Dasht-e Kavir and the Dasht-e Lut, where low basins dry out into salt flats. On the narrow coast by the Caspian Sea, the mountains catch the rain, and forests, swamps and rice fields grow. Earthquakes happen often in Iran.

Massive, eroded ranges surround Iran's high interior basin: the Alborz along the south shore of the Caspian and the Zagros, a band of parallel ridges up to 200 km wide that runs northwest to southeast toward the Strait of Hormuz. Mount Damavand, an extinct volcano about 68 km northeast of Tehran, is the highest point; Britannica gives estimates from about 5,610 to 5,670 m and dates its latest eruption to about 7,300 years ago. Earthquakes are frequent and violent; in 2003 one leveled the old town of Bam.

The plateau's floor holds the Dasht-e Kavir and Dasht-e Lut, where evaporation leaves salt wastes called kavirs. UNESCO inscribed the Lut Desert in 2016 for its yardangs, massive corrugated ridges carved by strong winds between June and October. Rainfall ranges from under 50 mm a year in the southeast to about 1,980 mm by the Caspian, averaging about 400 mm; average summer daytime temperatures in Abadan top 43 °C, while winter highs in Tabriz barely reach freezing.

Leopards and brown bears live in Iran's green forests.

Wild goats called ibex live in the mountains. A few cheetahs live in Iran too. Fish called sturgeon swim in the Caspian Sea.

Iran's wooded mountains are home to leopards, bears, wild boars, wild goats called ibex, and gazelles. Wild asses live in the salty deserts, and partridges live in most parts of the country.

In the old forests along the Caspian Sea, scientists have recorded 180 kinds of birds and 58 kinds of mammals, including leopards, wolves and brown bears. Cheetahs are almost gone from Asia, and the biggest group known there, just a few dozen, lives in northeastern Iran. In the Caspian Sea swim sturgeon, fish whose eggs are made into caviar.

Britannica lists leopards, bears, hyenas, wild boars, ibex, gazelles and mouflons in Iran's wooded mountains, wild asses in the kavirs, and jackals and rabbits in the interior; tigers once lived in the Caspian forests but are now extinct there. Cheetahs are almost extinct in Asia, and the largest confirmed population there, a few dozen animals, lives in northeastern Iran.

The Hyrcanian Forests, a broad-leaved forest belt along the Caspian shared with Azerbaijan, were inscribed by UNESCO in 2019. Their history goes back 25 to 50 million years; they hold more than 3,200 vascular plant species, 180 bird species and 58 mammal species, with full ecosystems that include leopard, wolf and brown bear. Sturgeon are one of 30 fish species in the Caspian and an important export as caviar, and some 200 kinds of fish live in the Persian Gulf. Golestan National Park and the Touran Protected Area are among the country's sanctuaries.

About 92 million people live in Iran.

Many people speak Persian. Many other languages are spoken too. Rice is a main food. The new year, called Nowruz, begins on the first day of spring.

About 92 million people lived in Iran in 2025. By the 2000s, about three out of four lived in towns and cities. Persian, also called Farsi, is the official language. Many people speak other languages too, such as Azerbaijani, Kurdish, Luri, Arabic and Armenian.

Rice is a main food, simple dishes such as stews called khoresh and kebabs are common, and saffron, mint, lime and pomegranates add flavor. Nowruz, the Persian New Year, falls on the first day of spring, usually March 21. A weeklong holiday follows, and on the 13th day of the new year many people go for a picnic in the countryside. Football is the most popular sport.

The World Bank estimated Iran's population at 92,417,681 in 2025; Britannica notes that after rapid urbanization from the 1960s into the 2000s, about three-fourths of people lived in urban areas, against one-third in the 1950s. Persian (Farsi) is the official language. Roughly three-fourths of Iranians speak an Indo-European language: slightly more than half a dialect of Persian, under one-tenth Kurdish, others Luri or Armenian. Turkic languages, mostly Azerbaijani, are spoken by about one-fourth, and Arabic is the native tongue of a small share.

The vast majority of Iranians are Twelver Shi'i Muslims, the official state religion; Kurds and Turkmen are mostly Sunni, and small Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian communities live across the country. Persian cooking centers on rice, lamb, vegetables and yogurt, in khoresh stews and kebabs, with saffron as its most distinctive spice. Nowruz, the Persian New Year, runs from the last Wednesday of the old year to a 13th-day countryside picnic. Britannica notes that most towns are supplied by qanats, tunnels that carry water from an underground mountain source down to the town, sometimes for 80 km.