Q 01/05

What is the capital and largest city of Iran?

A) Isfahan

B) Tehran

C) Shiraz

D) Mashhad

Answer · why

B) Tehran

Tehran became Iran's capital in the late 18th century; the city proper holds about 9 million people and its metropolitan area roughly 16 million.

Q 02/05

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

A) Persia

B) Parthia

C) Media

D) Bactria

Answer · why

A) Persia

Persia, from the Greek name for the Fars region, was the standard Western name until Reza Shah asked foreign governments to say Iran; in 1959 his son ...

Q 03/05

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

A) 1929

B) 1933

C) 1935

D) 1938

Answer · why

C) 1935

In 1935 Reza Shah's government asked foreign delegates to use Iran, the country's native name, instead of Persia, effective from that year's Nowruz.

Q 04/05

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

A) The Medes

B) The Elamites

C) The Parthians

D) The Scythians

Answer · why

A) The Medes

The Medes, an Iranian people of the northwest, built the first unified Iranian kingdom around 625 BC and went on to help Babylon destroy the Assyrian ...

Q 05/05

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

A) Xerxes I

B) Darius the Great

C) Cambyses II

D) Cyrus the Great

Answer · why

D) Cyrus the Great

Cyrus the Great founded the Achaemenid Empire around 550 BC by overthrowing the Medes, then conquered Lydia and Babylon; his son Cambyses II added Egy...