Q 01/05

What is the capital and largest city of Iran?

A) Isfahan

B) Tehran

C) Shiraz

D) Mashhad

Answer · why

B) Tehran

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.

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

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

Q 03/05

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

A) 1921

B) 1925

C) 1935

D) 1906

Answer · why

C) 1935

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

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

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

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

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