1.
Iran
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Iran, also known as Persia, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, is a sovereign state in Western Asia. Comprising a land area of 1,648,195 km2, it is the second-largest country in the Middle East, with 82.8 million inhabitants, Iran is the worlds 17th-most-populous country. It is the country with both a Caspian Sea and an Indian Ocean coastline. The countrys central location in Eurasia and Western Asia, and its proximity to the Strait of Hormuz, Tehran is the countrys capital and largest city, as well as its leading economic and cultural center. Iran is the site of to one of the worlds oldest civilizations, the area was first unified by the Iranian Medes in 625 BC, who became the dominant cultural and political power in the region. The empire collapsed in 330 BC following the conquests of Alexander the Great, under the Sassanid Dynasty, Iran again became one of the leading powers in the world for the next four centuries. Beginning in 633 AD, Arabs conquered Iran and largely displaced the indigenous faiths of Manichaeism and Zoroastrianism by Islam, Iran became a major contributor to the Islamic Golden Age that followed, producing many influential scientists, scholars, artists, and thinkers. During the 18th century, Iran reached its greatest territorial extent since the Sassanid Empire, through the late 18th and 19th centuries, a series of conflicts with Russia led to significant territorial losses and the erosion of sovereignty. Popular unrest culminated in the Persian Constitutional Revolution of 1906, which established a monarchy and the countrys first legislative body. Following a coup instigated by the U. K. Growing dissent against foreign influence and political repression led to the 1979 Revolution, Irans rich cultural legacy is reflected in part by its 21 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the third-largest number in Asia and 11th-largest in the world. Iran is a member of the UN, ECO, NAM, OIC. Its political system is based on the 1979 Constitution which combines elements of a democracy with a theocracy governed by Islamic jurists under the concept of a Supreme Leadership. A multicultural country comprising numerous ethnic and linguistic groups, most inhabitants are Shia Muslims, the largest ethnic groups in Iran are the Persians, Azeris, Kurds and Lurs. Historically, Iran has been referred to as Persia by the West, due mainly to the writings of Greek historians who called Iran Persis, meaning land of the Persians. As the most extensive interactions the Ancient Greeks had with any outsider was with the Persians, however, Persis was originally referred to a region settled by Persians in the west shore of Lake Urmia, in the 9th century BC. The settlement was then shifted to the end of the Zagros Mountains. In 1935, Reza Shah requested the international community to refer to the country by its native name, opposition to the name change led to the reversal of the decision, and Professor Ehsan Yarshater, editor of Encyclopædia Iranica, propagated a move to use Persia and Iran interchangeably
2.
Provinces of Iran
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Iran is subdivided into thirty one provinces, each governed from a local center, usually the largest local city, which is called the capital of that province. The provincial authority is headed by a Governor-General, who is appointed by the Minister of the Interior subject to approval of the cabinet, from 1960 to 1981 the governorates were raised to provincial status one by one
3.
Mazandaran Province
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Mazandaran Province pronunciation, is an Iranian province located along the southern coast of the Caspian Sea and in the adjacent Central Alborz mountain range, in central-northern Iran. Mazandaran Province is one of the most densely populated provinces in Iran and has natural resources, notably large reservoirs of oil. The provinces four largest counties are Sari, Amol, Nur, Mazandaran is a major producer of farmed fish, and aquaculture provides an important economic addition to traditional dominance of agriculture. Another important contributor to the economy is the industry, as people from all of Iran enjoy visiting the area. Mazandaran is also a centre for biotechnology. The province covers an area of 23,842 km², Sari is the capital city of the province. Mazandaran is divided into 15 counties, all the shahrestans are named after their administrative center, except Savadkooh. Human habitation in the dates back at least 75,000 years. Recent excavations in Gohar Tape in Behshahr provide proof that the area has been urbanized for more than 5,000 years, and it has played an important role in cultural and urban development of the region. Mazandaran is one of the oldest areas Sedentism, Mazandaran is a Caspian province in the north of Iran. Located on the southern coast of the Caspian Sea, it is bordered clockwise by Russia, Golestan, Semnan, Tehran, Alborz, Qazvin, Sari is the largest city and the capital of Mazandaran province. Mazandaran Province was made part of the First Region upon the division of the provinces into five regions solely for coordination, before the arrival of the Iranian-speakers to Iran, native people of this area were subsistence hunters and cattle herders. Archaeological studies in caves belt and Hutu man in Behshahr in the Mazandaran date to approximately 9500 BC, the Amard were a tribe living along the mountainous region bordering the Caspian Sea, including current day Amol. The territory known as Mazandaran has changed hands among various dynasties from early in its history, there are several fortresses remaining from Parthia and Sassanid times, and many older cemeteries scattered throughout the province. During this era, Mazandaran was part of Hyrcania Province which was one of the important provinces, in 662 CE, ten years after the death of Yazdegerd III the last Sassanian Emperor, a large Muslim army under the command of Hassan ibn Ali invaded Tabarestan. With the advent of the Sassanid dynasty, the King of Mazandaran was Gushnasp, in 529–536, Mazandaran was ruled by the Sassanid prince Kawus, son of Kawadh. Anushirawan, the Sassanid king, defeated Zarmihr, who claimed his ancestry from the legendary blacksmith Kaveh and this dynasty ruled the area till 645 AD, when Gil Gilanshah joined Mazandaran to Gilan. There are several fortresses remaining from Parthian and Sassanid times, during this era, Mazandaran was part of Hyrcania Province which was one of the important provinces
4.
Counties of Iran
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The counties of Iran, also called shahrestan, are administrative divisions of larger provinces. The word shahrestan comes from the Persian words shahr and stān, county, therefore, is a near equivalent of shahrestan. Iranian counties are divided into one or more bakhsh, or districts, a typical county includes both cities and rural agglomerations, which are groupings of adjacent villages. One city within the county serves as the capital of that county, in 2005, Iran had 324 shahrestans. To better understand these subdivisions, the table is useful. Assume that province P is divided into two counties, A and B, county A has 3 districts, Central, X, and Y. The Central district is the district that contains City M, the capital of the county, each district contains one or more cities and/or one or more RAs. The minimal county consists of one city as the only district, named Central. The county B in the table is of such type
5.
Ramsar County
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Ramsar County is a county in Mazandaran Province in Iran. The capital of the county is Ramsar, at the 2006 census, the countys population was 67,675, in 19,666 families. The county has one district, the Central District, the county has two cities, Ramsar and Ketalem and Sadat Shahr. اطلس گیتاشناسی استانهای ایران Media related to Ramsar county at Wikimedia Commons
6.
Rural Districts of Iran
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The first level of country subdivisions of Iran are the provinces. Each province is subdivided into counties called shahrestan, and each shahrestan is subdivided into districts called bakhsh. There are usually a few cities and rural districts in each county, rural districts are a collection of a number of villages. One of the cities of the county is appointed as the capital of the county, assume that province P is divided into two counties, A and B. County A has 3 districts, Central, X, and Y, the Central district is the district that contains City M, the capital of the county. Each district might contain one or more cities or one or more RDs, the minimal county consists of only one city as the only district, named Central, which is most common. The county B in the table is of such type
7.
Iran Standard Time
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Iran Standard Time or Iran Time is the time zone used in Iran. Iran uses a UTC offset UTC+03,30, IRST is defined by the 52.5 degrees east meridian, the same meridian which defines the Iranian calendar and is the official meridian of Iran. Between 2005 and 2008, by decree of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and it was reintroduced from 21 March 2008. Iran is unusual in that the dates of DST transitions arent based on a such as the third Monday in September. So in most countries, DST transitions occur on the same every year
8.
Daylight saving time
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Daylight saving time is the practice of advancing clocks during summer months by one hour so that evening daylight lasts an hour longer, while sacrificing normal sunrise times. Typically, regions that use Daylight Savings Time adjust clocks forward one hour close to the start of spring, American inventor and politician Benjamin Franklin proposed a form of daylight time in 1784. New Zealander George Hudson proposed the idea of saving in 1895. The German Empire and Austria-Hungary organized the first nationwide implementation, starting on April 30,1916, many countries have used it at various times since then, particularly since the energy crisis of the 1970s. The practice has both advocates and critics, DST clock shifts sometimes complicate timekeeping and can disrupt travel, billing, record keeping, medical devices, heavy equipment, and sleep patterns. Computer software often adjusts clocks automatically, but policy changes by various jurisdictions of DST dates, industrialized societies generally follow a clock-based schedule for daily activities that do not change throughout the course of the year. The time of day that individuals begin and end work or school, North and south of the tropics daylight lasts longer in summer and shorter in winter, with the effect becoming greater as one moves away from the tropics. However, they will have one hour of daylight at the start of each day. Supporters have also argued that DST decreases energy consumption by reducing the need for lighting and heating, DST is also of little use for locations near the equator, because these regions see only a small variation in daylight in the course of the year. After ancient times, equal-length civil hours eventually supplanted unequal, so civil time no longer varies by season, unequal hours are still used in a few traditional settings, such as some monasteries of Mount Athos and all Jewish ceremonies. This 1784 satire proposed taxing window shutters, rationing candles, and waking the public by ringing church bells, despite common misconception, Franklin did not actually propose DST, 18th-century Europe did not even keep precise schedules. However, this changed as rail transport and communication networks came to require a standardization of time unknown in Franklins day. Modern DST was first proposed by the New Zealand entomologist George Hudson, whose shift work job gave him time to collect insects. An avid golfer, he also disliked cutting short his round at dusk and his solution was to advance the clock during the summer months, a proposal he published two years later. The proposal was taken up by the Liberal Member of Parliament Robert Pearce, a select committee was set up to examine the issue, but Pearces bill did not become law, and several other bills failed in the following years. Willett lobbied for the proposal in the UK until his death in 1915, william Sword Frost, mayor of Orillia, Ontario, introduced daylight saving time in the municipality during his tenure from 1911 to 1912. Starting on April 30,1916, the German Empire and its World War I ally Austria-Hungary were the first to use DST as a way to conserve coal during wartime, Britain, most of its allies, and many European neutrals soon followed suit. Russia and a few other countries waited until the year
9.
Iran Daylight Time
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Iran Standard Time or Iran Time is the time zone used in Iran. Iran uses a UTC offset UTC+03,30, IRST is defined by the 52.5 degrees east meridian, the same meridian which defines the Iranian calendar and is the official meridian of Iran. Between 2005 and 2008, by decree of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and it was reintroduced from 21 March 2008. Iran is unusual in that the dates of DST transitions arent based on a such as the third Monday in September. So in most countries, DST transitions occur on the same every year
10.
Persian language
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Persian, also known by its endonym Farsi, is one of the Western Iranian languages within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan and it is mostly written in the Persian alphabet, a modified variant of the Arabic script. Its grammar is similar to that of many contemporary European languages, Persian gets its name from its origin at the capital of the Achaemenid Empire, Persis, hence the name Persian. A Persian-speaking person may be referred to as Persophone, there are approximately 110 million Persian speakers worldwide, with the language holding official status in Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan. For centuries, Persian has also been a cultural language in other regions of Western Asia, Central Asia. It also exerted influence on Arabic, particularly Bahrani Arabic. Persian is one of the Western Iranian languages within the Indo-European family, other Western Iranian languages are the Kurdish languages, Gilaki, Mazanderani, Talysh, and Balochi. Persian is classified as a member of the Southwestern subgroup within Western Iranian along with Lari, Kumzari, in Persian, the language is known by several names, Western Persian, Parsi or Farsi has been the name used by all native speakers until the 20th century. Since the latter decades of the 20th century, for reasons, in English. Tajiki is the variety of Persian spoken in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan by the Tajiks, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term Persian as a language name is first attested in English in the mid-16th century. Native Iranian Persian speakers call it Fārsi, Farsi is the Arabicized form of Pārsi, subsequent to Muslim conquest of Persia, due to a lack of the phoneme /p/ in Standard Arabic. The origin of the name Farsi and the place of origin of the language which is Fars Province is the Arabicized form of Pārs, in English, this language has historically been known as Persian, though Farsi has also gained some currency. Farsi is encountered in some literature as a name for the language. In modern English the word Farsi refers to the language while Parsi describes Zoroastrians, some Persian language scholars such as Ehsan Yarshater, editor of Encyclopædia Iranica, and University of Arizona professor Kamran Talattof, have also rejected the usage of Farsi in their articles. The international language-encoding standard ISO 639-1 uses the code fa, as its system is mostly based on the local names. The more detailed standard ISO 639-3 uses the name Persian for the dialect continuum spoken across Iran and Afghanistan and this consists of the individual languages Dari and Iranian Persian. Currently, Voice of America, BBC World Service, Deutsche Welle, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty also includes a Tajik service and an Afghan service. This is also the case for the American Association of Teachers of Persian, The Centre for Promotion of Persian Language and Literature, Persian is an Iranian language belonging to the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European family of languages
11.
Romanization
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Romanization, in linguistics, is the conversion of writing from a different writing system to the Roman script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and transcription, for representing the spoken word, There are many consistent or standardized romanization systems. They can be classified by their characteristics, source, or donor language – A system may be tailored to romanize text from a particular language, or a series of languages, or for any language in a particular writing system. A language-specific system typically preserves language features like pronunciation, while the one may be better for cataloguing international texts. Target, or receiver language – Most systems are intended for an audience that speaks or reads a particular language and this affects the ease of creation, digital storage and transmission, reproduction, and reading of the romanized text. Reversibility – Whether or not the original can be restored from the converted text, some reversible systems allow for an irreversible simplified version. Most romanizations are intended to enable the reader who is unfamiliar with the original script to pronounce the source language reasonably accurately. Such romanizations follow the principle of phonemic transcription and attempt to render the significant sounds of the original as faithfully as possible in the target language, the popular Hepburn romanization of Japanese is an example of a transcriptive romanization designed for English speakers. The International Phonetic Alphabet is the most common system of phonetic transcription, for most language pairs, building a usable romanization involves tradeoffs between the two extremes. In modern times the chain of transcription is usually spoken foreign language, written language, written native language. Reducing the number of processes, i. e. removing one or both steps of writing, usually leads to more accurate oral articulations. In general, outside a limited audience of scholars romanizations tend to lean more towards transcription, Romanization standards include the following, Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft, Adopted by the International Convention of Orientalist Scholars in Rome. It is the basis for the very influential Hans Wehr dictionary, qalam, A system that focuses upon preserving the spelling, rather than the pronunciation, and uses mixed case ISO 233-2, Simplified transliteration. Buckwalter transliteration, Developed at Xerox by Tim Buckwalter, doesnt require unusual diacritics ALA-LC Arabic chat alphabet There are romanization systems for both Modern and Ancient Greek. ALA-LC Beta Code Greeklish ISO843 The Hebrew alphabet is romanized using several standards, ANSI Z39.25 UNGEGN ISO259, ALA-LC The Brahmic family of abugidas is used for languages of the Indian subcontinent and south-east Asia. There is a tradition in the west to study Sanskrit. Various transliteration conventions have been used for Indic scripts since the time of Sir William Jones, ISO15919, A standard transliteration convention was codified in the ISO15919 standard. It uses diacritics to map the much larger set of Brahmic consonants, see also Transliteration of Indic scripts, how to use ISO15919
12.
Capital city
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A capital city is the municipality exercising primary status in a country, state, province, or other region, usually as its seat of government. A capital is typically a city that encompasses the offices and meeting places of its respective government. In some jurisdictions, including countries, the different branches of government are located in different settlements. In some cases, a distinction is made between the capital and the seat of government, which is in another place. The word capital derives from the Latin caput, meaning head, in several English-speaking states, the terms county town, county seat, and borough seat are also used in lower subdivisions. In unitary states, subnational capitals are known as administrative centres. The capital is often, but not necessarily, the largest city of its constituent, historically, the major economic centre of a state or region often becomes the focal point of political power, and becomes a capital through conquest or federation. Examples are Ancient Babylon, Abbasid Baghdad, Ancient Athens, Rome, Constantinople, Changan, Ancient Cusco, Madrid, Paris, London, Moscow, Beijing, Tokyo, Vienna, and Berlin. Some of these cities are or were also religious centres, e. g. Constantinople, Rome, Jerusalem, Ancient Babylon, Moscow, Belgrade, Paris, and Peking. A capital city that is also the economic, cultural. The convergence of political and economic or cultural power is by no means universal, traditional capitals may be economically eclipsed by provincial rivals, e. g. Nanking by Shanghai, Quebec City by Montreal, and numerous US state capitals. The decline of a dynasty or culture could also mean the extinction of its city, as occurred at Babylon. Although many capitals are defined by constitution or legislation, many long-time capitals have no legal designation as such, for example Bern, Edinburgh, Lisbon, London, Paris, are located in or near them. In Canada, there is a capital, while the ten provinces. The states of such countries as Mexico, Brazil, and Australia all have capital cities, for example, the six state capitals of Australia are Adelaide, Brisbane, Hobart, Melbourne, Perth, and Sydney. In Australia, the capital cities is regularly used, to refer to the aforementioned state capitals plus the federal capital Canberra and Darwin. Abu Dhabi is the city of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. In unitary states which consist of multiple constituent countries, such as the United Kingdom or the Kingdom of Denmark, the national capitals of Germany and Russia, the Stadtstaat of Berlin and the Federal City of Moscow, are also constituent states of both countries in their own right
13.
Ramsar, Mazandaran
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Ramsar is a city in and the capital of Ramsar County, Mazandaran Province, Iran. At the 2012 census, its population was 33,018, Ramsar lies on the coast of the Caspian Sea. It was also known as Sakhtsar in the past, the native people in Ramsar are Gilaks although there are also Mazandarani people living there. They speak the Gilaki language although the style they speak has been influenced by the Mazandarani language, the natives of Ramsar call their dialect Ramsari as its a combination of Eastern Gilaki and Royan/Western Mazandarani. They are also able to speak Persian, the language of Iran. Ramsar is the westernmost county and city in Mazandaran and it borders the Caspian Sea to the north, Gilan province to the west, Qazvin Province to the south, and Tonekabon to the east. Ramsar is a sea resort for Iranian tourists. The town also offers hot springs, the forests of the Alborz Mountains, the vacation palace of the last Shah. Twenty-seven kilometres south of Ramsar and 2700 meters above sea level in the Alborz mountains is Javaher Deh village, presently, there are 160 contracting parties, up from 119 in 2000 and from 18 initial signatory nations in 1971. Signatories meet every three years as the Conference of the Contracting Parties, the first held in Cagliari, Italy in 1980, amendments to the original convention have been agreed to in Paris and Regina. Northern Iran, as well as most portions of Iran, is separated by mountains, as a result, the air in Teheran is very dry. When driving to Ramsar from Teheran, one drives up the mountains until he or she arrives at a tunnel. On passing through this tunnel and coming out the other side, ramsars Talesh Mahalleh district is the most radioactive inhabited area known on Earth, due to nearby hot springs and building materials originating from them. Record levels were found in a house where the radiation dose due to external radiation was 131 mSv/a. This unique case is over 80 times higher than the average background radiation. The prevailing model of radiation-induced cancer posits that the risk rises linearly with dose at a rate of 5% per Sv, if this linear no-threshold model is correct, it should be possible to observe an increased incidence of cancer in Ramsar through careful long-term studies currently underway. Early anecdotal evidence from local doctors and preliminary studies suggested that there may be no such harmful effect. Furthermore, there are questions regarding possible non-cancer effects of the radiation background, an Iranian study has shown that people in the area have a significantly higher expression of CD69 gene and also a higher incidence of stable and unstable chromosomal aberrations
14.
Administrative divisions of Iran
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The first level of country subdivisions of Iran are the provinces. Each province is subdivided into counties called shahrestan, and each shahrestan is subdivided into districts called bakhsh. There are usually a few cities and rural districts in each county, rural districts are a collection of a number of villages. One of the cities of the county is appointed as the capital of the county, assume that province P is divided into two counties, A and B. County A has 3 districts, Central, X, and Y, the Central district is the district that contains City M, the capital of the county. Each district might contain one or more cities or one or more RDs, the minimal county consists of only one city as the only district, named Central, which is most common. The county B in the table is of such type