70 Fun Facts About Iran

What is the capital and largest city of Iran?

With about 9 million people in the city and 16.8 million in the metro area, it is the largest metropolitan area in the Middle East.

By what name was Iran commonly known in the West until the 1930s?

In 1959 the last Shah declared both names acceptable in formal correspondence.

In which year did the shah ask foreign delegates to use the name 'Iran' in formal correspondence?

The request came during an international gathering for Nowruz, the Persian new year.

The territory of present-day Iran was first unified in the 7th century BC under which people?

Their king Cyaxares joined Babylon in destroying the Assyrian capital Nineveh in 612 BC.

Who founded the Achaemenid Empire, the largest Iranian state in history?

He conquered the Lydian and Neo-Babylonian empires; his son Cambyses II then took Egypt.

The Cyrus Cylinder, discovered in the ruins of Babylon in 1879, is held by which institution?

The Akkadian cuneiform text was buried as a foundation deposit after the Persian conquest of Babylon in 539 BC.

Which ancient city, settled around 4400 BC, was the capital of Elam and later an Achaemenid capital?

It sits beside modern Shush and was Darius the Great's first capital.

The Achaemenid Royal Road ran from Susa to which city in Lydia?

Its first recorded mentions come from the reign of Darius the Great, who also improved the empire's road system.

Persepolis, the ceremonial Achaemenid capital, was captured and burned in 330 BC by whose army?

One theory says the fire avenged the Persian burning of Athens; another blames a drunken feast urged on by the courtesan Thaïs.

Who founded the Sasanian Empire in AD 224 after killing the last Parthian ruler?

The Sasanians revived Zoroastrianism as a unifying ideal and at their height ruled from the Caucasus to Central Asia.

Which 16th-century dynasty re-unified Iran and made Twelver Shia Islam the state religion?

Their empire collapsed in 1722 after the siege of their capital.

Who founded the Pahlavi dynasty by ousting the last Qajar ruler in 1925?

He ruled for almost 16 years until the Anglo-Soviet invasion of 1941 forced him to abdicate in favour of his son.

Which Iranian prime minister's oil nationalisation led to the Anglo-American coup of 1953?

He was tried for treason and confined to house arrest on his estate, while his foreign minister was executed.

Who was Iran's first supreme leader after the 1979 revolution?

He became supreme leader in December 1979 and, on his deathbed in 1989, named Ali Khamenei to succeed him.

For how many days were 52 American hostages held after the November 1979 embassy seizure?

The students called the embassy a "den of spies"; the hostages were released in January 1981.

In which month and year did Iraq invade Iran, starting the eight-year Iran–Iraq War?

The invasion came at Khuzestan; the war ended in 1988 when Khomeini "drank the cup of poison" and accepted a UN-mediated truce.

Which sea lies along Iran's northern border?

The lush lowland Hyrcanian forests along its southern shore are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Mount Damavand, Iran's tallest peak at 5,610 m, holds which continental record?

The dormant stratovolcano sits 66 km northeast of the capital and looms large in Persian mythology.

Mount Damavand lies in the middle of which mountain range?

The range runs along the Caspian coast; the capital sits at its southern foot.

Which arid region of Iran has recorded the highest land surface temperature on Earth, 70.7 °C?

Its name means "plain of emptiness", and it joined the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2016.

Which is the largest of Iran's deserts?

The east of the country is mostly desert basins and salt lakes; the populous west is the mountainous part.

Into how many provinces is Iran divided?

The provinces are grouped into five regions.

Iran ranks 17th in the world by both area and what other measure?

Its population passed 92 million; the second city, Mashhad, has around 3 million people.

Which city is Iran's second most populous?

It is among the country's most popular destinations after the capital.

Which currency replaced the qiran as Iran's official unit in 1932?

The rial is nominally divided into 100 dinars, though the dinar is worthless in practice; Iranians colloquially count in tomans of 10 rials.

The Takbir is written along the edges of Iran's flag how many times?

It appears 11 times each on the green and red bands, in white Kufic script; the flag took its current form in July 1980.

Nowruz, the Iranian new year, is timed to which astronomical event?

Its roots lie in Zoroastrianism and it has been celebrated for more than 3,000 years, usually between 19 and 22 March.

Zoroastrians worship which supreme, uncreated deity?

The faith centres on the Avesta and the teachings of Zarathushtra, known in Greek as Zoroaster.

The Shahnameh, the Persian national epic of some 50,000 couplets, was written by which poet?

It took him about 33 years and remains the longest epic poem ever created by a single author.

The 14th-century lyric poet Hafez, whose Divan sits in many Iranian homes, came from which city?

He is nicknamed Lisan al-Ghayb, the "Tongue of the Unseen", and his verses are used as everyday proverbs.

The poet Rumi's name means "the Roman" because he settled in which Anatolian city?

His family fled Balkh ahead of the Mongols; he founded the Mevlevi Order of whirling dervishes there.

Naqsh-e Jahan Square, built by the Safavids between 1598 and 1629, is at the heart of which city?

A Persian proverb calls the city "half the world"; the square is ringed by the Shah Mosque, Ali Qapu Palace and Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque.

Chogha Zanbil in Iran is one of the few surviving examples outside Mesopotamia of what structure?

The Elamite complex is conventionally dated to about 1250 BC and is considered the best-preserved stepped temple-tower anywhere.

The Golestan Palace in the capital was the official royal complex of which dynasty?

It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site made up of eight palatial buildings inside a wall, now used mainly as museums.

How tall is the Milad Tower, the tallest tower in Iran, from base to antenna tip?

Its head is a 12-storey pod with a roof at 315 m; construction took about 11 years and 7 months.

Iran produces roughly what share of the world's saffron?

Afghanistan is a distant second; the spice comes from the crimson threads of Crocus sativus.

Iran is the world's largest producer and exporter of which luxury food?

It ships more than 300 tonnes a year, drawn from Caspian sturgeon.

Iran, the USA and which other country together grow 87% of the world's pistachios?

World production reached 1.4 million tonnes in 2024; Iran is also a top-five grower of dates, figs and walnuts.

Which sport is traditionally considered Iran's national sport?

The traditional form, koshti-e pahlevani or "heroic wrestling", is on UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage list.

How many times has Iran's men's team won the AFC Asian Cup?

The titles came in a row in 1968, 1972 and 1976, and the team has also won three Asian Games golds.

Iran's first-ever World Cup match win, in 1998, came against which team?

It has never gone beyond the group stage; later wins came against Morocco in 2018 and Wales in 2022.

Iran made its first FIFA World Cup appearance in which year?

Qualification came with a win over Australia at home; the team then skipped the 1980s tournaments during the war with Iraq.

In 1974 Iran became the first country in West Asia to host which multi-sport event?

The capital's Azadi Stadium, built for it, is still the largest football stadium in West Asia.

Which Abbas Kiarostami film won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1997?

He later shot Certified Copy in Italy and Like Someone in Love in Japan, his first films made outside Iran.

Which Iranian director won Oscars for A Separation and The Salesman?

He is one of only a handful of directors to have won that Oscar twice, and Time listed him among the 100 most influential people in 2012.

Who in 2003 became the first Iranian to win a Nobel Prize, taking the Peace Prize?

The lawyer and former judge founded the Defenders of Human Rights Center and has lived in exile in London since 2009.

Which Iranian mathematician became the first woman to win the Fields Medal, in 2014?

She was also the first Iranian to win mathematics' highest prize.

Iranian physicist Ali Javan co-invented which device in 1960?

Fellow Iranian Lotfi Zadeh introduced fuzzy set theory, and cardiologist Tofy Mussivand built the first artificial cardiac pump.

Iran placed its first domestically built satellite in orbit in 2009 using which launch vehicle?

The satellite, Omid, went up on the 30th anniversary of the revolution.

In which year did Iran's first nuclear power plant come online?

The country had opened its first wind and geothermal plants in 2004 and its first solar thermal plant in 2009.

According to a 2003 estimate, which is Iran's second-largest ethnic group after Persians?

Their language is the most-spoken minority tongue in the country; Persians were put at 51% and Azerbaijanis at 24%.

Roughly what proportion of Iranians adhere to Twelver Shia Islam, the state religion?

Sunni Islam, Christianity, Judaism and Zoroastrianism are officially recognised and have reserved seats in parliament.

How many UNESCO World Heritage Sites does Iran have?

That is the 10th-highest total in the world; the list includes Persepolis, Pasargadae, Golestan Palace and the city of Yazd.

Iran was the first country to introduce what economic policy nationally in autumn 2010?

The cash transfers replaced heavy subsidies on fuel and food.

Which two big cats did Iran lose entirely by the early 20th century?

The critically endangered Asiatic cheetah still survives in small numbers in the country's deserts.

The name of Iran's capital is said to mean what?

The range's Tochal Peak rises to 3,963 m directly above the city.

On 31 March 1979 Iranians voted in a referendum on switching from a monarchy to what?

The vote mandated an assembly to draft a theocratic constitution, under which the supreme leader took office that December.

Which Median king joined Babylon's Nabopolassar to destroy Nineveh in 612 BC?

The fall of the Assyrian capital ended the Neo-Assyrian Empire; the Medes later dissolved Urartu too.

Which conqueror ordered the massacre of some 70,000 people in Isfahan in 1387?

The Timurids held most of Iran until 1452, when the Qara Qoyunlu took the bulk of it.

Which Afghan dynasty's siege of Isfahan brought down the Safavid Empire in 1722?

Turmoil followed until Nader Shah's rise and, later, the Qajar dynasty in 1789-96.

The 1953 coup that toppled Mosaddegh was known to the CIA by what codename?

MI6 called the same plot Operation Boot; retired general Fazlollah Zahedi led it on 19 August.

How many members sit in Iran's unicameral parliament, the Majles?

Members serve four-year terms and five seats are reserved for religious minorities.

How many members make up the Guardian Council that vets Iranian candidates and vetoes legislation?

All are appointed by the Supreme Leader, directly or indirectly.

Which body has the power to elect and, in theory, dismiss Iran's Supreme Leader?

To date it has never challenged a Supreme Leader's decisions or tried to remove him.

Which reformist former health minister was elected president after Ebrahim Raisi's death in 2024?

Raisi died in a helicopter crash in May 2024.

Which airline's Flight 752 was shot down by the IRGC shortly after take-off from Tehran in January 2020?

All 176 people aboard the Boeing 737-800 bound for Kyiv were killed.

Roughly what share of the world's crude oil did Iran produce in 2023?

That is about 3.6 million barrels a day, earning some $36 billion in exports.

Iran ranked in which position among the world's car-manufacturing nations in 2024?

It built 1.188 million cars in 2023 and exports to Venezuela, Russia and Belarus.

What was the name of the domestically built satellite Iran orbited on the revolution's 30th anniversary in 2009?

The Iranian Space Agency, founded in 2004, launched it aboard a Safir rocket.

Iran's fertility rate fell from 6.5 children per woman to roughly what figure two decades later?

The population still grew from about 19 million in 1956 to about 85 million by 2023.