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Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmenistan to the north, by Afghanistan and Pakistan to the east, and by the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf to the south. It covers an area of , making it the 17th-largest country. Iran has a population of 86 million, making it the 17th-most populous country in the world, and the second-largest in the Middle East. Its largest cities, in descending order, are the capital Tehran, Mashhad, Isfahan, Karaj, Shiraz, and Tabriz.

The country is home to one of the world's oldest civilizations, beginning with the formation of the Elamite kingdoms in the fourth millennium BC. It was first unified by the Medes, an ancient Iranian people, in the seventh century BC, and reached its territorial height in the sixth century BC, when Cyrus the Great founded the Achaemenid Persian Empire, which became one of the largest empires in history and a superpower. The Achaemenid Empire fell to Alexander the Great in the fourth century BC and was subsequently divided into several Hellenistic states. An Iranian rebellion established the Parthian Empire in the third century BC, which was succeeded in the third century AD by the Sassanid Empire, a major world power for the next four centuries. Arab Muslims conquered the empire in the seventh century AD, which led to the Islamization of Iran. It subsequently became a major center of Islamic culture and learning, with its art, literature, philosophy, and architecture spreading across the Muslim world and beyond during the Islamic Golden Age. Over the next two centuries, a series of native Iranian Muslim dynasties emerged before the Seljuk Turks and the Mongols conquered the region. In the 15th century, the native Safavids re-established a unified Iranian state and national identity, and converted the country to Shia Islam. Under the reign of Nader Shah in the 18th century, Iran presided over the most powerful military in the world, though by the 19th century, a series of conflicts with the Russian Empire led to significant territorial losses. The early 20th century saw the Persian Constitutional Revolution. Efforts to nationalize its fossil fuel supply from Western companies led to an Anglo-American coup in 1953, which resulted in greater autocratic rule under Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and growing Western political influence. He went on to launch a far-reaching series of reforms in 1963. After the Iranian Revolution, the current Islamic Republic was established in 1979 by Ruhollah Khomeini, who became the country's first Supreme Leader.

The government of Iran is an Islamic theocracy that includes some elements of a presidential system, with the ultimate authority vested in an autocratic "Supreme Leader"; a position held by Ali Khamenei since Khomeini's death in 1989. The Iranian government is authoritarian, and has attracted widespread criticism for its significant constraints and abuses against human rights and civil liberties, including several violent suppressions of mass protests, unfair elections, and limited rights for women and for children. It is also a focal point for Shia Islam within the Middle East, countering the long-existing Arab and Sunni hegemony within the region. Since the Iranian Revolution, the country is widely considered to be the largest adversary of Israel and also of Saudi Arabia. Iran is also considered to be one of the biggest players within Middle Eastern affairs, with its government being involved both directly and indirectly in the majority of modern Middle Eastern conflicts.

Iran is a regional and middle power, with a geopolitically strategic location in the Asian continent. It is a founding member of the United Nations, the ECO, the OIC, and the OPEC. It has large reserves of fossil fuels—including the second-largest natural gas supply and the third-largest proven oil reserves. The country's rich cultural legacy is reflected in part by its 26 UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Historically a multi-ethnic country, Iran remains a pluralistic society comprising numerous ethnic, linguistic, and religious groups, with the largest of these being Persians, Azeris, Kurds, Mazandaranis, and Lurs.

Name

The term ''Iran'' derives directly from Middle Persian , first attested in a third-century inscription at Naqsh-e Rostam, with the accompanying Parthian inscription using the term , in reference to the Iranians. The Middle Iranian ''ērān'' and ''aryān'' are oblique plural forms of gentilic nouns ''ēr-'' (Middle Persian) and ''ary-'' (Parthian), both deriving from Proto-Iranian language ''*arya-'' (meaning "Aryan", i.e. "of the Iranians"), recognized as a derivative of Proto-Indo-European language ', meaning "one who assembles (skilfully)". In the Iranian languages, the gentilic is attested as a self-identifier, included in ancient inscriptions and the literature of the Avesta, and remains also in other Iranian ethnic names ''Alan'' ( os, Ир ) and ''Iron'' (). According to the Iranian mythology, the country's name comes from the name of Iraj, a legendary prince and shah who was killed by his brothers.
Historically, Iran has been referred to as ''Persia'' by the West, due mainly to the writings of Greek historians who referred to all of Iran as (Ancient Greek: Περσίς; from Old Persian ), meaning "land of the Persians", while Persis itself was one of the provinces of ancient Iran that is today known as Fars. As the most extensive interaction the ancient Greeks had with any outsider was with the Persians, the term persisted, even long after the Greco-Persian Wars (499–449 BC).

In 1935, Reza Shah requested the international community to refer to the country by its native name, ''Iran'', on Nowruz, falling on 21 March 1935 (Esfand 30, 1313), 4:43 pm Tehran time; effective 22 March (the Iranian New Year on Farvardin 1, 1314) that year. Opposition to the name change led to the reversal of the decision in 1959, and Professor Ehsan Yarshater, editor of ''Encyclopædia Iranica'', propagated a move to use ''Persia'' and ''Iran'' interchangeably. Today, both ''Iran'' and ''Persia'' are used in cultural contexts, while ''Iran'' remains mandatory in official state contexts.

Historical and cultural usage of the word ''Iran'' is not restricted to the modern state proper. "Greater Iran" (''Irānzamīn'' or ''Irān e Bozorg'') refers to territories of the Iranian cultural and linguistic zones. In addition to modern Iran, it includes portions of the Caucasus, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, Afghanistan, and Central Asia.

Pronunciation

The Persian pronunciation of ''Iran'' is . Common Commonwealth English pronunciations of ''Iran'' are listed in the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' as and , while American English dictionaries such as Merriam-Webster's provide pronunciations which map to , or likewise in ''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary'' as . The ''Cambridge Dictionary'' lists as the British pronunciation and as the American pronunciation. Similarly, Glasgow-based ''Collins English Dictionary'' provides both English English and American English pronunciations. The pronunciation guide from Voice of America also provides .

The American English pronunciation may be heard in U.S. media. Max Fisher in ''The Washington Post'' prescribed for ''Iran'', while proscribing . ''The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language'', in the dictionary's 2014 Usage Ballot, addressed the topic of the pronunciations of Iran and Iraq. According to this survey, the pronunciations and were deemed almost equally acceptable, while was preferred by most panelists participating in the ballot. With regard to the pronunciation, more than 70% of the panelists deemed it unacceptable. Among the reasons given by those panelists were that has "hawkish connotations" and sounds "angrier", "xenophobic", "ignorant", and "not... cosmopolitan". The pronunciation remains standard and acceptable, reflected in the entry for ''Iran'' in the American Heritage Dictionary itself, as well as in each of the other major dictionaries of American English.

History

Prehistory

The earliest attested archaeological artifacts in Iran, like those excavated at Kashafrud and Ganj Par in northern Iran, confirm a human presence in Iran since the Lower Paleolithic. Iran's Neanderthal artifacts from the Middle Paleolithic have been found mainly in the Zagros region, at sites such as Warwasi and Yafteh. From the tenth to the seventh millennium BC, early agricultural communities began to flourish in and around the Zagros region in western Iran, including Chogha Golan, Chogha Bonut, and Chogha Mish.

The occupation of grouped hamlets in the area of Susa, as determined by radiocarbon dating, ranges from 4395–3955 to 3680–3490 BC. There are dozens of prehistoric sites across the Iranian Plateau, pointing to the existence of ancient cultures and urban settlements in the fourth millennium BC.Iranian.ws, "Archaeologists: Modern civilization began in Iran based on new evidence", 12 August 2007. Retrieved 1 October 2007.
During the Bronze Age, the territory of present-day Iran was home to several civilizations, including Elam, Jiroft, and Zayanderud. Elam, the most prominent of these civilizations, developed in the southwest alongside those in Mesopotamia, and continued its existence until the emergence of the Iranian empires. The advent of writing in Elam was paralleled to Sumer, and the Elamite cuneiform was developed since the third millennium BC.

From the 34th to the 20th century BC, northwestern Iran was part of the Kura-Araxes culture, which stretched into the neighboring Caucasus and Anatolia. Since the earliest second millennium BC, Assyrians settled in swaths of western Iran and incorporated the region into their territories.

Classical antiquity

By the second millennium BC, the ancient Iranian peoples arrived in what is now Iran from the Eurasian Steppe, rivaling the native settlers of the region. As the Iranians dispersed into the wider area of Greater Iran and beyond, the boundaries of modern-day Iran were dominated by Median, Persian, and Parthian tribes.

From the late tenth to the late seventh century BC, the Iranian peoples, together with the "pre-Iranian" kingdoms, fell under the domination of the Assyrian Empire, based in northern Mesopotamia. Under king Cyaxares, the Medes and Persians entered into an alliance with Babylonian ruler Nabopolassar, as well as the fellow Iranian Scythians and Cimmerians, and together they attacked the Assyrian Empire. The civil war ravaged the Assyrian Empire between 616 and 605 BC, thus freeing their respective peoples from three centuries of Assyrian rule. The unification of the Median tribes under king Deioces in 728 BC led to the foundation of the Median Empire which, by 612 BC, controlled almost the entire territory of present-day Iran and eastern Anatolia. This marked the end of the Kingdom of Urartu as well, which was subsequently conquered and dissolved.

In 550 BC, Cyrus the Great, the son of Mandane and Cambyses I, took over the Median Empire, and founded the Achaemenid Empire by unifying other city-states. The conquest of Media was a result of what is called the ''Persian Revolt''. The brouhaha