43 Fun Facts About Tehran

Which mountain range rises directly north of Tehran?

Alborz: Tehran's higher northern districts, with a more moderate climate, grew into the wealthiest part of the city.

Which castrated ruler made Tehran Iran's capital?

Agha Mohammad Khan: crowned shah of shahs in 1796, he was assassinated the next year by two of his own servants.

Which CIA operation helped topple Iran's prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in Tehran in 1953?

Operation Ajax: coup organisers paid gangs to stage pro-Shah riots through Tehran, and CIA documents released in 2013 confirmed the agency's role.

Which ancient city, now part of Greater Tehran, appears in old sources as Rhages?

Ray: after Mongol invaders ruined the city and massacred its people, survivors of the massacre moved to nearby Tehran.

Tehran's Azadi Tower marked 2,500 years since which king founded Persia's empire?

Cyrus: the 1971 celebration honoured the monarchy he founded, but within eight years a revolution swept that monarchy away.

What was Tehran's Azadi Tower originally called before the 1979 revolution?

Shahyad: the 'Shah's Memorial' became the symbol of the revolution that drove him into exile, and was renamed Azadi, 'Freedom'.

Which material completely clads the exterior of the Azadi Tower?

Cut marble: after the 1979 revolution the tower's architect, Hossein Amanat, a member of the persecuted Baha'i faith, was forced into exile.

Which Tehran-set Asghar Farhadi film became the first Iranian film to win an Oscar?

A Separation: Farhadi won again five years later with The Salesman, but refused to attend that ceremony in protest at Trump's visa ban.

Which sea's humid air does a mountain range keep from reaching Tehran?

The Caspian Sea: with that moist wind held back, Tehran's polluted air is often trapped over the city instead of clearing.

Which Iranian president had been Tehran's mayor until his election in 2005?

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: as mayor he scaled back the reforms of his moderate predecessors, then won the presidency in 2005.

Which Tehran palace complex was proclaimed a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2013?

Golestan: much of the old royal compound was torn down and replaced in the 1930s as Tehran was remade into a modern city.

Who was crowned in Tehran in 1926, the first Pahlavi coronation?

Reza Shah: he had seized power in a 1921 coup, and in 1925 an assembly deposed the absent Qajar king and made him shah.

Which Qajar ruler of Tehran was assassinated in 1896?

Naser al-Din Shah: his assassin was a follower of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, a campaigner who had urged Iranians to resist the shah.

Which three Allied leaders met in Tehran in late 1943?

Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill: there the British and Americans finally committed to invading northern France by May 1944, the plan called Overlord.

At the 1943 Tehran Conference, Britain presented a jewelled sword honouring which Soviet city's defenders?

Stalingrad: before it was handed over in Tehran, the sword went on public display in cities around the UK, including London.

Which Ben Affleck film tells how the CIA smuggled six Americans out of revolutionary Tehran?

Argo: the CIA passed the six off as a Canadian crew scouting locations for a fake science-fiction film of that name.

Tehran's US embassy hostages were freed minutes after whose inauguration?

Reagan: Algerian diplomats brokered the release, after Iran's demands centred on its assets frozen in the United States.

Which airport handles Tehran's international flights?

Imam Khomeini: its namesake returned from exile near Paris in February 1979 and was acclaimed leader of the revolution.

Which 1963 reform programme, opposed in Tehran by clerics and bazaar merchants, gave Iranian women the vote?

The White Revolution: its land reform broke up big landlords' estates and handed plots to the sharecroppers who farmed them.

Which country's state firm built the Tehran Metro's first line, opened in 1999?

China: state firm NORINCO built that line to Karaj, and Chinese firms went on to supply carriages for later lines.

Which Iranian director made Taxi, shot on Tehran's streets despite a government ban on his filmmaking?

Jafar Panahi: Taxi won Berlin's Golden Bear, and because he could not leave Iran, his niece collected the prize for him.

Which Tehran avenue is said to be the longest street in the Middle East?

Valiasr: it was first named for the Shah's royal dynasty, and after the 1979 revolution it was eventually renamed for a revered Shia figure.

Which volcanic peak, visible from Tehran on clear days, is Iran's highest mountain?

Damavand: fumaroles and hot springs vent volcanic heat on its slopes, though its last eruption was about 7,300 years ago.

Which two football clubs contest the Tehran derby?

Esteghlal and Persepolis: Persepolis's fans traditionally came from the working classes, unlike Esteghlal's, a class divide that sharpens the rivalry.

Which American painter's Mural on Indian Red Ground is held by the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art?

Jackson Pollock: the museum amassed its Western masterpieces in the 1970s, paid for by Iran's oil wealth.

Which multi-sport event did Tehran host in 1974?

Asian Games: the next year Tehran formally applied to host the 1984 Summer Olympics as well.

What was Tehran's Azadi Stadium called when it opened in 1971?

Aryamehr: it was named after one of the Shah's titles, and after the 1979 revolution the stadium was renamed Azadi, 'Freedom'.

Which Iranian empress inaugurated the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art in 1977?

Farah Pahlavi: she commissioned her cousin, the architect Kamran Diba, to design the museum, and he became its first director.

After the 1979 revolution, where did the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art store its Western masterpieces?

In its own basement vault: museum staff moved the works there, and no Western art was shown again until a 1999 exhibition.

Which US president was a guest at Tehran's Niavaran Palace on 31 December 1977?

Jimmy Carter: in his toast that night he called Iran 'an island of stability', just over a year before the revolution toppled the Shah.

Which institution houses the Iranian crown jewels displayed in Tehran?

Central Bank of Iran: some of the collection's most famous stones were seized by Nader Shah when he sacked Delhi in 1739.

In 1997, about 128,000 fans at Tehran's Azadi Stadium watched Iran draw 1-1 with which team?

Australia: a week later in Melbourne, Iran came back from two goals down to draw 2-2 and reach the World Cup on away goals.

Which tennis champion's father grew up in Tehran and boxed for Iran at the Olympics?

Andre Agassi: in Open, his 2009 memoir, he confessed that he had always hated tennis.

Which Tehran shopping complex set a Guinness record for the longest continuous concrete pour?

Iran Mall: it was put up for sale after its owner, Ayandeh Bank, was dissolved by the government in 2025.

Which capital's tech hub, nicknamed Teheran Valley, runs along a street named for Tehran?

Seoul: the street was named during a visit by Tehran's mayor, when the two capitals agreed to name streets for each other.

Which Qajar shah was forced to grant Iran a constitution in 1906, after mass protests in Tehran?

Mozaffar ad-Din Shah: he died soon after signing it, and his son then tried to abolish the constitution and parliament.

Which building style did Kamran Diba draw on for the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art?

Desert towns like Yazd and Kashan: Diba also borrowed the spiral of New York's Guggenheim Museum, sinking the galleries along a downward walkway.

Which Tehran-raised mathematician became the first woman to win the Fields Medal?

Maryam Mirzakhani: as a girl she had no intention of becoming a mathematician, and she dreamed of being a writer instead.

On whose order was Dar ol-Fonun, Tehran's pioneering 19th-century school, established?

Amir Kabir: the European teachers he had hired reached Tehran to find he had already been dismissed.

Which two powers invaded Iran in 1941 and still occupied it during the 1943 Tehran Conference?

Britain and the USSR: they occupied Iran to open a safe route for sending war material to the Soviets fighting Germany.

Which 18th-century ruler built a palace in Tehran but governed Iran from Shiraz?

Karim Khan: he never claimed the royal title of king of kings, ruling instead as vakil, or regent.

Which country's airline lost a jet that Iran's Revolutionary Guards shot down after takeoff from Tehran in 2020?

Ukraine: Iran first blamed mechanical failure, then admitted three days later that its forces had shot the jet down by mistake.

In 1404 a Spanish envoy passed through Tehran on his way to which conqueror's court at Samarkand?

Timur: he was then planning his next great conquest, but he died early the next year and the campaign never took place.