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Travel to Iran — Unbiased reviews and great
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Iran
Islamic Republic of Iran National
name: Jomhuri-ye Eslami-ye Iran Chief of State: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
(1989) President: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
(2005)
Current government officials
Land area: 631,659 sq mi (1,635,999 sq
km); total area: 636,293 sq mi (1,648,000 sq km) Population (2008 est.): 65,875,223 (growth
rate: 0.7%); birth rate: 16.8/1000; infant mortality rate: 36.9/1000;
life expectancy: 70.8; density per sq km: 40
Capital and largest city (2003 est.):
Tehran, 7,796,257 (city proper) Other large cities: Mashad, 2,061,100;
Isfahan, 1,378,600; Tabriz, 1,213,400 Monetary unit: Rial
Languages:
Persian and Persian dialects 58%, Turkic and
Turkic dialects 26%, Kurdish 9%, Luri 2%, Balochi 1%, Arabic 1%,
Turkish 1%, other 2%
Ethnicity/race:
Persian 51%, Azerbaijani 24%, Gilaki and
Mazandarani 8%, Kurd 7%, Arab 3%, Lur 2%, Baloch 2%, Turkmen 2%, other
1%
Religions:
Islam 98% (Shi'a 89%, Sunni 9%); Zoroastrian,
Jewish, Christian, and Baha'i 2%
National Holiday:
Republic Day, April 1 Literacy rate: 77% (2005 est.) Economic summary: GDP/PPP (2007 est.):
$753billion; per capita $10,600. Real growth rate: 5.8%.
Inflation: 17.5%. Unemployment: 12%). Arable land:
9%. Agriculture: wheat, rice, other grains, sugar beets,
fruits, nuts, cotton; dairy products, wool; caviar. Labor force:
28.7 million; note: shortage of skilled labor; agriculture 30%,
industry 25%, services 45% (2006 est.). Industries: petroleum,
petrochemicals, textiles, cement and other construction materials,
food processing (particularly sugar refining and vegetable oil
production), metal fabrication, armaments. Natural resources:
petroleum, natural gas, coal, chromium, copper, iron ore, lead,
manganese, zinc, sulfur. Exports: $76.5 billion f.o.b. (2007
est.): petroleum 80%, chemical and petrochemical products, fruits and
nuts, carpets. Imports: $61.3 billion f.o.b. (2007 est.):
industrial raw materials and intermediate goods, capital goods,
foodstuffs and other consumer goods, technical services, military
supplies. Major trading partners: Japan, China, Italy, South
Korea, Turkey, Netherlands, Germany, France, UAE, South Korea, Russia
(2004). Communications: Telephones:
main lines in use: 21.981 million (2006); mobile cellular: 13.659
million (2006). Radio broadcast stations: AM 72, FM 5,
shortwave 5 (1998). Television broadcast stations: 28 (plus 450
low-power repeaters) (1997). Internet hosts: 6,111 (2007).
Internet users: 18 million (2006). Transportation: Railways: 8,3673 km (2006).
Highways: total: 179,388 km; paved: 120,782 km (including 878
km of expressways); unpaved: 58,606 km (2003). Waterways: 850
km (on Karun River and Lake Urmia) (2004). Ports and harbors:
Assaluyeh, Bushehr. Airports: 331 (2007). International disputes: Iran protests
Afghanistan's limiting flow of dammed tributaries to the Helmand River
in periods of drought; Iraq's lack of a maritime boundary with Iran
prompts jurisdiction disputes beyond the mouth of the Shatt al Arab in
the Persian Gulf; Iran and UAE engage in direct talks and solicit Arab
League support to resolve disputes over Iran's occupation of Tunb
Islands and Abu Musa Island; Iran stands alone among littoral states
in insisting upon a division of the Caspian Sea into five equal
sectors.
Major sources and definitions
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Geography
Iran, a Middle Eastern country south of the
Caspian Sea and north of the Persian Gulf, is three times the size of
Arizona. It shares borders with Iraq, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan,
Armenia, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
The Elburz Mountains in the north rise to 18,603
ft (5,670 m) at Mount Damavend. From northwest to southeast, the country
is crossed by a desert 800 mi (1,287 km) long.
Government
Iran has been an Islamic theocracy since the
Pahlavi monarchy regime was overthrown on Feb. 11, 1979.
History
The region now called Iran was occupied by the
Medes and the Persians in the 1500s B.C., until
the Persian king Cyrus the Great overthrew the Medes and became ruler of
the Achaemenid (Persian) Empire, which reached from the Indus to the Nile
at its zenith in 525 B.C. Persia fell to
Alexander in 331–330 B.C. and a
succession of other rulers: the Seleucids (312–302 B.C.), the Greek-speaking Parthians (247 B.C.–A.D. 226), the
Sasanians (224–c. 640), and the Arab Muslims (in 641). By the
mid-800s Persia had become an international scientific and cultural
center. In the 12th century it was invaded by the Mongols. The Safavid
dynasty (1501–1722), under whom the dominant religion became Shiite
Islam, followed, and was then replaced by the Qajar dynasty
(1794–1925).
During the Qajar dynasty, the Russians and the
British fought for economic control of the area, and during World War I,
Iran's neutrality did not stop it from becoming a battlefield for Russian
and British troops. A coup in 1921 brought Reza Kahn to power. In 1925, he
became shah and changed his name to Reza Shah Pahlavi. He subsequently did
much to modernize the country and abolished all foreign extraterritorial
rights.
The country's pro-Axis allegiance in World War
II led to Anglo-Russian occupation of Iran in 1941 and deposition of the
shah in favor of his son, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. Pahlavi's Westernization
programs alienated the clergy, and his authoritarian rule led to massive
demonstrations during the 1970s, to which the shah responded with the
imposition of martial law in Sept. 1978. The shah and his family fled Iran
on Jan. 16, 1979, and the exiled cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
returned to establish an Islamic theocracy. Khomeini proceeded with his
plans for revitalizing Islamic traditions. He urged women to return to
wearing the veil; banned alcohol, Western music, and mixed bathing; shut
down the media; closed universities; and eliminated political parties.
Revolutionary militants invaded the U.S. embassy
in Tehran on Nov. 4, 1979, seized staff members as hostages, and
precipitated an international crisis. Khomeini refused all appeals, even a
unanimous vote by the UN Security Council demanding immediate release of
the hostages. Iranian hostility toward Washington was reinforced by the
Carter administration's economic boycott and deportation order against
Iranian students in the U.S., the break in diplomatic relations, and
ultimately an aborted U.S. raid in April 1980 aimed at rescuing the
hostages.
As the first anniversary of the embassy seizure
neared, Khomeini and his followers insisted on their original conditions:
guarantee by the U.S. not to interfere in Iran's affairs, cancellation of
U.S. damage claims against Iran, release of $8 billion in frozen Iranian
assets, an apology, and the return of the assets held by the former
imperial family. These conditions were largely met and the 52 American
hostages were released on Jan. 20, 1981, ending 444 days in captivity.
The sporadic war with Iraq regained momentum in
1982, as Iran launched an offensive in March and regained much of the
border area occupied by Iraq in late 1980. The stalemated war dragged on
well into 1988. Although Iraq expressed its willingness to stop fighting,
Iran stated that it would not end the war until Iraq agreed to pay for war
damages and to punish the Iraqi government leaders involved in the
conflict. On July 20, 1988, Khomeini, after a series of Iranian military
reverses, agreed to cease-fire negotiations with Iraq. A cease-fire went
into effect on Aug. 20, 1988. Khomeini died in June 1989 and Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei succeeded him as the supreme leader.
By early 1991 the Islamic revolution appeared to
have lost much of its militancy. Attempting to revive a stagnant economy,
President Rafsanjani took measures to decentralize the command system and
introduce free-market mechanisms.
Mohammed Khatami, a little-known moderate
cleric, former newspaperman, and national librarian, won the presidential
election with 70% of the vote on May 23, 1997, a stunning victory over the
conservative ruling elite. Khatami supported greater social and political
freedoms, but his steps toward liberalizing the strict clerical rule
governing the country put him at odds with the supreme leader, Ayatollah
Khamenei.
Signaling a seismic change in Iran's political
environment, reform candidates won the overwhelming majority of seats in
Feb. 2000 parliamentary elections, thereby wresting control from
hard-liners, who had dominated the parliament since the 1979 Islamic
revolution. The parliament's reformist transformation greatly buttressed
the efforts of Khatami in constructing a nation of “lasting
pluralism and Islamic democracy.” Khatami walked a jittery tightrope
between student groups and other liberals pressuring him to introduce
bolder freedoms and Iran's military and conservative clerical elite
(including Khamenei), who expressed growing impatience with the
president's liberalizing measures. In June 2001 presidential elections,
Khatami won reelection with a stunning 77% of the vote.
In Jan. 2002, U.S. president Bush announced that
Iran was part of an “axis of evil,” calling it one of the most
active state sponsors of international terrorism.
By 2003, Iran was fanning much of the world's
suspicions that it had illegal nuclear ambitions. In June 2003, the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) criticized Iran's concealment of
much of its nuclear facilities and called on the country to permit more
rigorous inspections of its nuclear sites. Under intense international
pressure, Iran reluctantly agreed in December to suspend its uranium
enrichment program and allow for thorough IAEA inspections.
On Dec. 26, the most destructive earthquake of
2003 devastated the historic city of Bam, killing an estimated 28,000 to
30,000 of its 80,000 residents.
In Feb. 2004, conservatives won a landslide
victory in parliamentary elections, a setback for Iran's reformist
movement. The hard-line Guardian Council had disqualified more than 2,500
reformist candidates, including more than 80 who were already members of
the 290-seat parliament. The IAEA again censured the country in June 2004
for failing to fully cooperate with nuclear inspections. Neither U.S.
threats nor Europe's coaxing managed to halt Iran's alarming defiance.
In June 2005, former Tehran mayor Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, a hard-line conservative and a devout follower of Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei, won the presidential election with 62% of the vote.
Ahmadinejad was highly popular among Iran's rural poor, who responded to
his pledge to fight corruption among the country's elite. In Aug. 2005, he
rejected an EU disarmament plan that was backed by the U.S. and had been
under negotiation for two years. Ahmadinejad has been defiantly
anti-Western and venomously anti-Israeli, announcing that Israel was a
“disgraceful blot” that should be “wiped off the
map.”
In Jan. 2006, Iran removed UN seals on uranium
enrichment equipment and resumed nuclear research. France, Britain, and
Germany called off nuclear talks with Iran, and along with the United
States, threatened to refer Iran to the UN Security Council, a step
avoided thus far. Russia and China, both of whom have strong economic ties
to Iran, refused to endorse sanctions. In April Iran announced it had
successfully enriched uranium. In July a Security Council resolution was
finally passed, demanding that Iran halt its nuclear activities by the end
of August or face possible sanctions.
In December 2006 elections for local councils in
Iran, moderate conservatives and some reformist candidates won the
majority of the seats. The results were seen as a sign of public
dissatisfaction with President Ahmadinejad and his hard-line stances.
In May 2007, the International Atomic Energy
Agency reported that Iran is using about 1,300 centrifuges and producing
fuel for nuclear reactors, evidence that the country has flouted another
deadline to stop enriching uranium. The fuel would have to be further
enriched to make it weapons grade, however. In September, Iran followed
the IAEA's finding with the announcement that it had reached its goal of
developing 3,000 active centrifuges.
A National Intelligence Estimate, released in
December 2007 and compiled by the 16 agencies of the U.S. intelligence
community, reported "with high confidence" that Iran had frozen its
nuclear weapons program in 2003. The report contradicted one written in
2005 that stated Iran was determined to continue developing such weapons.
The report seemed to immediately put the brakes on any plans by the Bush
administration to preemptively attack Iran's weapons facilities and to
impose another round of sanctions against Iran. The report suggests that
Iran has bowed to international pressure to end its pursuit of an atomic
bomb. "Iran may be more vulnerable to influence on the issues than we
judged previously," it said. After the release of the intelligence report,
President Bush, however, said Iran remains a threat and can not be trusted
to pursue enriching uranium for civilian use. "Look, Iran was dangerous,
Iran is dangerous, and Iran will be dangerous, if they have the knowledge
necessary to make a nuclear weapon," he said. "What’s to say they
couldn’t start another covert nuclear weapons program?"
In May 2008, Parliament overwhelmingly elected
former secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Ali Larijani as
speaker. Larijani, a rival to Ahmadinejad, though conservative and a
proponent of the country's nuclear program, is considered a pragmatist who
would be open to talking to the West.
Iran continued to taunt the U.S. and Israel in
July when it test-fired nine long- and medium-range missiles, which could
reach parts of Israel. A commander of the Revolutionary Guard said, "The
aim of these war games is to show we are ready to defend the integrity of
the Iranian nation." The United States and Israel both condemned the move.
Just days later, Iran's chief negotiator, Saeed Jalili, met with
representatives from the U.S., France, Britain, Germany, Russia, and China
to discuss the country's nuclear program. Iran, however, refused to accept
a proposal that called on Iran to freeze its nuclear program, and in
exchange, the six nations would not seek further sanctions against Iran.
William Burns, the U.S. under secretary of state for political affairs,
who attended the meeting, is the highest-ranking member of the Bush
administration to meet with a representative from Iran.
See also Encyclopedia: Iran. U.S. State Dept. Country Notes:
Iran
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