1.
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
2.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
3.
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
4.
Regions of Iran
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Historically and geographically Iran has been divided into a number of different regions. In 2014, Iran was administratively divided into five regions, in 1937 the territory of Iran was divided into 10 administrative regions, Region 1, Region 2, Region 10, etc. For example, Region 7 or Seventh Province corresponded to present-day Fars Province per the Territorial Subdivision Act of 1316 Š. /1937, irans thirty-one provinces were divided into five regions on 22 June 2014, based on a decision of Ministry of Interior. In the division, the adjacency, geographical location and similarities of the provinces were considered, the Constitution of Iran does not provide for regions and they are not the constituent units of the country, but exist purely for the convenience of governmental administration. Also, it now provides a level where provinces can discuss their problems among themselves. The intention was for each region to have regularly scheduled meetings of the constituent provinces Governors-general, the host province would provide the chairman of each meeting. A regional secretariat would be established in the city of the main province of each region. Histories, travel books and economic analyses often refer to less formal, more historical or geographical, the borders of these are not fixed and often have changed over time, and even overlapped at the same time
5.
Azerbaijan (Iran)
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Azerbaijan or Azarbaijan, also known as Iranian Azerbaijan, is a region in northwestern Iran that borders Iraq, Turkey, the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, Armenia, and the Republic of Azerbaijan. Iranian Azerbaijan is administratively divided into West Azerbaijan, East Azerbaijan, Ardabil, the region is mostly populated by Azerbaijanis, with minority populations of Kurds, Armenians, Tats, Talysh, Assyrians and Persians. Historic Azerbaijan was called Atropatene in antiquity and Aturpatakan in the pre-Islamic Middle Ages, some refer to Iranian Azerbaijan as South Azerbaijan and the Republic of Azerbaijan as Northern Azerbaijan, although others believe that these terms are irredentist and politically motivated. Since then the Azerbaijani people have been partitioned between nations, the territories south of the Aras River, which comprised the region historically known as Azerbaijan, became the new north-west frontier of the Persian Empire and later Iran. The name Azerbaijan itself is derived from Atropates, the Persian Satrap of Medea in the Achaemenid empire, Atropates name is believed to be derived from the Old Persian roots meaning protected by fire. The name is mentioned in the Avestan Frawardin Yasht, âterepâtahe ashaonô fravashîm ýazamaide which translates literally to. The name Atropat in Middle Persian was transformed to Adharbad and is connected with Zoroastrianism, a famous Zoroastrian priest by the name Adarbad Mahraspandan is well known for his counsels. Thus, until 1918, when the Musavat regime decided to name the newly independent state Azerbaijan, the oldest kingdom known in Iranian Azerbaijan is that of the Mannea who ruled a region south-east of Lake Urmia centred around modern Saqqez. The Manneans were a confederation of Iranian and non-Iranian groups, according to Professor Zadok, it is unlikely that there was any ethnolinguistic unity in Mannea. Like other peoples of the Iranian plateau, the Manneans were subjected to an ever increasing Iranian penetration, the Mannaeans were conquered and absorbed by an Iranian people called Matieni, and the country was called Matiene, with Lake Urmia called Lake Matianus. Matiene was later conquered by the Medes and became a satrapy of the Median empire, after Alexander the Great conquered Persia, he appointed as governor the Persian general Atropates, who eventually established an independent dynasty. The region, which came to be known as Atropatene or Media Atropatene, was much disputed, in the 2nd century BC, it was liberated from Seleucid domination by Mithradates I of Arsacid dynasty, and was later made a province of the Sassanid Empire of Ardashir I. Under the Sassanids, Azerbaijan was ruled by a marzubān, and, towards the end of the period, large parts of the region were conquered by the Kingdom of Armenia. Large parts of the made up part of historical Armenia. The parts of historical Armenia within what is modern-day Azerbaijan comprise, Nor Shirakan, Vaspurakan, Vaspurakan, of which large parts were located in what is modern-day Iranian Azerbaijan is described as the cradle of Armenian civilization. On 26 May 451 AD, an important battle was fought that would prove immensely pivotal in Armenian history. On the Avarayr Plain, at what is modern-day Churs, the Armenian Army under Vardan Mamikonian clashed with Sassanid Persia, heraclius, the Byzantine emperor, briefly held the region in the 7th century until peace was made with the Sassanids. After the Islamic Conquest of Iran, Arab invaders converted most of its people to Islam, rustam himself was born in Azerbaijan and led the Sasanian army into battle
6.
Capital (political)
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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
7.
Zanjan, Iran
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Zanjan is the capital of Zanjan Province in Iranian Azerbaijan. It lies 298 km north-west of Tehran on the highway to Tabriz and Turkey. The city is located about 20 kilometers south of the Qaflankuh Mountain Range, at the 2016 census, its population was 433,475 which is the 20th largest city in Iran. The population of Zanjan consists mostly of Iranian Azerbaijanis who speak Azeri Turkish, Zanjan is known for its beautiful handcrafts such as knives, traditional sandals, called charoogh, and malileh, a handcraft made with silver wires. Zanjani artists make many things like decorative dishes and their special covers as well as silver jewelry. In ancient times, Zanjan was known for its stainless and sharp knives, but this tradition is gradually becoming extinct by introduction of Chinese-made knives into the market which are far cheaper, more abundant and of course less artistic. Many villagers today are traditional carpet weavers, perhaps Zanjans most popular handcraft, Zanjans population boasts the highest level of happiness among the people of 30 other provinces in Iran, according to a detailed survey conducted by Isna. Hamdollah Mostowfi, the Iranian traveler and historian, in his claims that Zanjan was built by Ardashir I. One important moment in the history of the city was in 1851 when the city became a center for the Babi uprisings, along with Neyriz and a fortress known as Shaykh Tabarsi. The forces of the government captured the Babi fort in Zanjan after a long siege on the orders of Grand Vizier Amir Kabir. According to Bosworth, who quotes Hamdollah Mostowfi, the inhabitants during the Ilkhanid era spoke pure Pahlawi, Zanjan has a cold semi-arid climate with hot, dry summers and cold, moist winters, often with snowfall. Precipitation is very low, and mostly falls between October and May and it is located in Enghelab sports complex. The facility also includes standard speed climbing walls, the citys football team is Shahrdari Zanjan who play in the 2nd Division
8.
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
9.
Assembly of Experts for Leadership
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The Assembly consists of eighty eight Mujtahids that are elected from lists of candidates by direct public vote for eight-year terms. The number of members has ranged from 82 elected in 1982 to 88 elected in 2016, current laws require the assembly to meet for at least two days every six months. The current chairman of the Fifth Assembly is Ahmad Jannati, due to Ali Khameneis very longtime unchallenged rule, many believe the Assembly of Experts has become a ceremonial body without any real power. Irans Chief Justice Sadeq Larijani, a Khamenei appointee, stated that it is illegal for the Assembly of Experts to supervise Khamenei. All candidates to the Assembly of Experts must be approved by the Guardian Council whose members are, in turn, accordingly, the Assembly has never questioned the Supreme Leader. There have been instances when the current Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei publicly criticized members of the Assembly of Experts, resulting in their arrest, another instance is when Khamenei indirectly called the late Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani a traitor for a statement he made resulting Rafsanjani to retract it. The Assembly of Experts grew out of the Assembly of Experts for Constitution, the members of this assembly are jurists, not theologians. This is an important difference. According to the Iranian Constitution, the assembly is in charge of supervising, dismissing and electing the Supreme Leader, in the event of his death, resignation or dismissal, the Experts shall take steps within the shortest possible time to appoint a new Leader. To choose the Supreme Leader, the Experts are to review qualified candidates, otherwise, in the absence of such a candidate, the Experts shall elect and declare one of their own as Supreme Leader. Iranian constitutional referendum,1989 removed the requirement for the leader to be a marja, the assembly gathers every six months. Activities of the assembly include compiling a list of those eligible to become Supreme Leader in the event of the current Supreme Leaders death, resignation and this is done by the 107/109 commission. Monitoring the current leader to make sure he continues to all the criteria listed in the constitution is done by the 111 commission. Members of the Assembly report to this commission about the issues concerning the current Supreme Leader, the meetings, meeting notes, and reports of the Assembly are confidential and not made available to anyone outside the assembly, except for the sitting Supreme Leader. The constitution does not specify requirements for candidacy for the Assembly of Experts, the assembly has passed laws to require all its members be experts in fiqh, authorizing the Guardian Council to vet candidates for ijtihad proficiency using written and oral examinations. Women are theoretically eligible to run for the Assembly of Experts, the Guardian Council rejected them, arguing that they lacked qualifications in fiqh. Currently, the age of the members of the Assembly is over 60 years. The members must be Hujjat al-Islam or Ayatollahs, the first elections for the Assembly of Experts of the Leadership were held in December 1982 and the Assembly first convened in 1983
10.
Supreme Leader of Iran
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The armed forces, judicial system, state television, and other key governmental organizations are under the control of the Supreme Leader of Iran. Khamenei also makes the decisions on the amount of transparency in elections in Iran. This post was established by the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran in accordance with the concept of the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist. The title Supreme Leader is often used as a sign of respect, however, this terminology is not found in the Constitution, which simply referred to the Leader. The Supreme Leader is more powerful than the President of Iran and appoints the heads of many posts in the military, the civil government. Originally Irans constitution stated that the Supreme Leader must be a Marja-e taqlid, however, in 1989, the constitution was amended to require simply Islamic scholarship of the leader, i. e. the leader could be a lower ranking cleric. In theory, the Supreme Leader is appointed and supervised by the Assembly of Experts, all candidates to the Assembly of Experts, the President and the Majlis, are selected by the Guardian Council, whose members are selected by the Supreme Leader of Iran. As such, the Assembly has never questioned the Supreme Leader, there have been instances when the current Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has publicly criticized members of the Assembly of Experts, resulting in their arrest and dismissal. For example, Khamenei publicly called then-member of the Assembly of Experts Ahmad Azari Qomi a traitor, resulting in Ahmad Azari Qomis arrest, there has also been instances where the Guardian Council reversed its ban for particular people after being ordered to do so by Khamenei. The Supreme Leader is the commander-in-chief of the forces and the provisional Head of the three branches of the state. He appoints and oversees the offices, the President and may also together with a two third majority of the Parliament impeach him. The Chief Justice for a term of 8 years, the members of the Expediency Discernment Council for a term of 5 years,6 of the 12 Members of the Guardian Council from among the members of the Council of Experts the other 6 are chosen by the Parliament. In March 1979, shortly after Ruhollah Khomeini’s return from exile and the overthrow of Irans monarchy, although some groups objected to the wording and choice and boycotted the referendum, 98% of those voting voted yes. The new constitution has been called a hybrid of theocratic and democratic elements with much of it based on the ideas Khomeini presented in his work Islamic Government, Governance of the Jurist. In it Khomeini argued that government must be run in accordance with traditional Islamic sharia, and for this to happen a leading Islamic jurist must provide political guardianship over the people. The leading jurist were known as Marja. ” and the importance of the Supreme Leader. ”Article 107 in the constitution mentions Imam Khomeini by name and praises him as the most learned and talented leader for emulation. The responsibilities of the Supreme Leader are vaguely stated in the constitution, as the rest of the clergy governed affairs on a daily basis, the Supreme Leader is capable of mandating a new decision as per the concept of Vilayat-e Faqih. Shortly before Imam Khomeinis death a change was made in the constitution allowing a lower ranking Shia cleric to become Supreme Leader, montazeri was demoted as a marja and Khomeini chose a new successor, a relatively low-ranking member of the clergy, Ali Khamenei
11.
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
12.
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
13.
Languages of Iran
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This article deals with the languages found in Iran and with Irans language policy and planning. For information about the branch of the Indo-European languages family. The current Language Policy of Iran is addressed on chapter two of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran and it asserts that the Persian language is the Lingua Franca of the Iranian nation and as such, bound to be used through all official government communications and schooling system. However, it should be noted that the minority languages of Iran do not receive a formal status and are not officially regulated by the authorities, in the course of time this enactment followed by others, which eventually lead to a monolingual policy by the Iranian regime. That includes political institutions, official bureaucratic communication and schooling, in other words, the Iranian authorities holds that minorities needs to learn the Iranian vernacular to an extent that will allow them to communicate with state institutions. Other aspects of Language Planning have not been assigned to an institute and are currently handled free of any official master plan. Different publications have reported different statistics for the languages of Iran, there have been some limited censuses taken in Iran in 2001,1991,1986 and 1949–1954. Total population 75,149,669 A census taken in the Iranian month of Mordad in 1991, in this census, all 49,588 mothers who gave birth in the country, were issued birth certificates. They were asked about their mother-tongue. Which were,46. 2%,20. 6%, 10% Kurdish,8. 9% Luri,7. 2% Gilaki and Mazandarani,3. 5% Arabic,2. 7% Baluchi,0. 6% Turkmen,0. 1% Armenian, and 0. 2% Others. See, on the percentage of Iranians that know Persian, those who do not know, in 1986, there was also a nationwide census done
14.
Azerbaijani language
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The language has official status in Azerbaijan and Dagestan but it does not have official status in Iranian Azerbaijan, where the majority of Azerbaijanis live. It is also spoken to varying degrees in Azerbaijani communities of Georgia and Turkey and by diaspora communities, primarily in Europe. Azerbaijani is a member of the Oghuz branch of the Turkic languages, modern literature in Azerbaijan is based on the Shirvani dialect mainly, while in Iranian Azerbaijan region it is based on the Tabrizi one. Azerbaijani evolved from the Eastern branch of Oghuz Turkic which spread to the Caucasus, in Eastern Europe, Persian and Arabic influenced the language, but Arabic words were mainly transmitted through the intermediary of literary Persian. By the beginning of the 16th century, it had become the dominant language of the region, the historical development of Azerbaijani can be divided into two major periods, early and modern. Early Azerbaijani differs from its descendant in that it contained a larger number of Persian. Early writings in Azerbaijani also demonstrate linguistic interchangeability between Oghuz and Kypchak elements in many aspects, despite major differences, they all aimed primarily at making it easy for semi-literate masses to read and understand literature. They all criticized the overuse of Persian, Arabic, and European elements in both colloquial and literary language and called for a simpler and more popular style. Despite the wide use of Azerbaijani in the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic, after independence, Azerbaijan republic decided to switch back to the Latin script. The first examples of Azerbaijani literature date to the late 1200s following the Mongol conquest and were written in Arabic script, in the 1300s Kadi Burhan al-Din, Hesenoghlu, and Imadaddin Nasimi helped to establish Azerbaiijani as a language through poetry and other literary works. In 1875 Akinchi became the first Azerbaijani newspaper to be published in the Russian Empire and it was started by Hasan bey Zardabi, a journalist and education advocate. Following the rule of the Qajar dynasty Iran was ruled by Reza Shah who banned the publication of texts in Azerbaijani, modern literature in the Republic of Azerbaijan is based on the Shirvani dialect mainly, while in Iranian Azerbaijan it is based on the Tabrizi dialect. Mohammad-Hossein Shahriar is an important figure in Azerbaijani poetry and his most important work is Heydar Babaya Salam and it is considered to be a pinnacle of Azerbaijani literature and gained popularity in the Turkic-speaking world. It was translated more than 30 languages. In the mid-19th century Azerbaijani literature was taught at schools in Baku, Ganja, Shaki, Tbilisi, since 1845, it has also been taught in the Saint Petersburg State University in Russia. Per the 1829 Caucasus School Statute, Azerbaijani was to be taught in all schools of Ganja, Shusha, Nukha, Shamakhi, Quba, Baku, Derbent, Yerevan, Nakhchivan, Akhaltsikhe. Beginning in 1834, it was introduced as a language of study in Kutaisi instead of Armenian, in 1853, Azerbaijani became a compulsory language for students of all backgrounds in all of Transcaucasia with the exception of the Tiflis Governorate. Azerbaijani is one of the Oghuz languages within the Turkic language family, the International Organization for Standardization encodes North Azerbaijani and South Azerbaijani as distinct languages
15.
Kurdish language
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Kurdish is a continuum of Northwestern Iranian languages spoken by the Kurds in Western Asia. Kurdish forms three dialect groups known as Northern Kurdish, Central Kurdish, and Southern Kurdish, a separate group of non-Kurdish Northwestern Iranian languages, the Zaza–Gorani languages, are also spoken by several million Kurds. Recent studies estimate between 8 to 20 million native Kurdish speakers in Turkey, the majority of the Kurds speak Northern Kurdish. The literary output in Kurdish was mostly confined to poetry until the early 20th century, today, there are two principal written Kurdish dialects, namely Northern Kurdish in the northern parts of the geographical region of Kurdistan and Central Kurdish further east and south. Central Kurdish is, along with Arabic, one of the two languages of Iraq and is in political documents simply referred to as Kurdish. The Kurdish languages belong to the Iranian branch of the Indo-European family and they are generally classified as Northwestern Iranian languages, or by some scholars as intermediate between Northwestern and Southwestern Iranian. Martin van Bruinessen notes that Kurdish has a strong south-western Iranian element, whereas Zaza, windfuhr identified Kurdish dialects as Parthian, albeit with a Median substratum. The most argued hypothesis on the localisation of the territory of the Kurds remains D. N. Mackenzies theory. He has tried to reconstruct the alleged Persian-Kurdish-Baluchi linguistic unity presumably in the parts of Iran. Kurdish is divided into three groups, where dialects from different groups are not mutually intelligible without acquired bilingualism, Northern Kurdish is the largest dialect group, spoken by an estimated 15 to 20 million Kurds in Turkey, Syria, northern Iraq and northwestern Iran. Central Kurdish is spoken by an estimated 6 to 7 million Kurds in much of Iraqi Kurdistan, Sorani is a written standard of Central Kurdish developed in the 1920s and was later adopted as the standard orthography of Kurdish as an official language of Iraq. Southern Kurdish is spoken by about 3 million Kurds in Kermanshah and Ilam provinces of Iran, in historical evolution terms, Kurmanji is less modified than Sorani and Pehlewani in both phonetic and morphological structure. The Kermanshahi group has influenced by among other things its closer cultural proximity to Persian. Philip G. Kreyenbroek, a writing in 1992, says. Sorani is normally written in a form of the Arabic script. Reasons for describing Kurmanji and Sorani as dialects of one language are their common origin, for example, Sorani has neither gender nor case-endings, whereas Kurmanji has both. Differences in vocabulary and pronunciation are not as great as between German and English, but they are still considerable, according to Encyclopaedia of Islam, although Kurdish is not a unified language, its many dialects are interrelated and at the same time distinguishable from other Western Iranian languages. The same source classifies different Kurdish dialects as two groups, northern and central
16.
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
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Iranian Azerbaijanis
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Azerbaijanis are the second largest ethnic group in the nation. Furthermore, the largest population of ethnic Azerbaijanis in the live in Iran. Iranian Azerbaijanis also constitute a significant minority in Tehran, Karaj, Azerbaijanis comprise the largest minority ethnic group in Iran. Apart from Iranian Azerbaijan, indigenous Azeri population is found in numbers in four provinces, Hamadan, Qazvin, Markazi. Azeri-populated parts of Markazi include Komijan, Khondab, Saveh, Zarandieh, Shazand, in Kurdistan, Azeris are mainly found in villages around Qorveh. It is a Turkish language learned and spoken by Iranian peasants”, according to Richard Frye, The Turkish speakers of Azerbaijan are mainly descended from the earlier Iranian speakers, several pockets of whom still exist in the region. Here they divided into Ottomans, who were Sunni and settled, and Turkmens and these are the people today known as Azeris. As for the culture, it remained traditional even after the Turkicization of the local population. The latter entered both the Azeri and Turkish language mainly through the Iranian intermediary, having become independent, the Azeri culture retained close connections with the Iranian and Arab cultures. They were reinforced by religion and common cultural-historical traditions. ”. The Iranian origins of the Azeris likely derive from ancient Iranian tribes, such as the Medes in Iranian Azerbaijan and it is believed that the Medes mixed with an indigenous population, the Caucasian Mannai, a Northeast Caucasian group related to the Urartians. It has also hypothesized that the population of Iranian Azerbaijan was predominantly Persian-speaking before the Oghuz arrived. The claim is mentioned by medieval historians, such as Al-Muqaddasi. Other common Perso-Azeribaijani features include Iranian place names such as Tabriz, the modern presence of the Iranian Talysh and Tats in Azerbaijan is further evidence of the former Iranian character of the region. As a precursor to modern groups, the ancient Azaris are also hypothesized as ancestors of the modern Azeris. The Russo-Persian Wars of the 19th century settled the boundary of Iran, stripping it of all its Caucasian territories. The eventual formation of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic in 1918 established the territory of modern Azerbaijan, as a direct result of Qajar Irans forced ceding to Russia, the Azerbaijanis are nowadays parted between two nations, Iran and Azerbaijan. Despite living on two sides of a border, the Azeris form a single ethnic group
18.
Tehran
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Tehran is the capital of Iran and Tehran Province. It is ranked 29th in the world by the population of its metropolitan area, in the Classical era, part of the present-day city of Tehran was occupied by a Median city that in the Avesta occurs as Rhaga. It was destroyed by the Mongols in the early 13th century, the capital has been moved several times throughout the history, and Tehran is the 32nd national capital of Iran. The city was the seat of the Qajars and Pahlavis, the two last imperial dynasties of Iran. It is home to historical collections, such as the royal complexes of Golestan, Sadabad. Large scale demolition and rebuilding began in the 1920s, and Tehran has been a destination for the migrations from all over Iran since the 20th century. Tabiat Bridge, which was completed in 2014, is considered the third symbol of the city. There have been plans to relocate Irans capital from Tehran to another area, due mainly to air pollution, to date, no definitive plans have been approved. A2016 survey of 230 cities by consultant Mercer ranked Tehran 203rd for quality of living, according to the Global Destinations Cities Index in 2016, Tehran is among the top ten fastest growing destinations. The origin of the name Tehran is uncertain, the settlement of Tehran dates back over 7,000 years. The present-day city of Tehran was a suburb of an important Median city that was known as Rhaga in Old Persian, in the Avestas Videvdat, Rhaga is mentioned as the twelfth sacred place created by the Ohrmazd. In Old Persian inscriptions, Rhaga appears as a province and it was a major area for the Iranian tribes of Medes and Achaemenids. From Rhaga, Darius the Great sent reinforcements to his father Hystaspes, in some Middle Persian texts, Rhaga is given as the birthplace of Zoroaster, although modern historians generally place the birth of Zoroaster in Khorasan. Derived into Modern Persian as Rey, it now as a city located towards the southern end of the modern-day city of Tehran. Mount Damavand, the highest peak of Iran, which is located near Tehran, is an important location in Ferdowsis Shahname, the long Iranian epic poem that is based on the ancient epics of Iran. It appears in the epics as the birthplace of Manuchehr, the residence of Keyumars, the place where Freydun binds the dragon fiend Aži Dahāka, during the Sassanid era, in 641, Yazdgerd III issued his last appeal to the nation from Rey, before fleeing to Khorasan. Rey was dominated by the Parthian Mihran family, and Siyavakhsh—the son of Mihran the son of Bahram Chobin—who resisted the Muslim Invasion, because of this resistance, when the Arabs captured Rey, they ordered the town to be destroyed and ordered Farrukhzad to rebuild the town anew. In the 9th century, Tehran was a well known village, but less known than the city of Rey, the medieval writer Najm od Din Razi declared the population of Rey about 500,000 before the Mongol Invasion
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Grape
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A grape is a fruit, botanically a berry, of the deciduous woody vines of the flowering plant genus Vitis. Grapes can be fresh as table grapes or they can be used for making wine, jam, juice, jelly, grape seed extract, raisins, vinegar. Grapes are a type of fruit, generally occurring in clusters. The cultivation of the grape began 6, 000–8,000 years ago in the Near East. Yeast, one of the earliest domesticated microorganisms, occurs naturally on the skins of grapes, the earliest archeological evidence for a dominant position of wine-making in human culture dates from 8,000 years ago in Georgia. The oldest known winery was found in Armenia, dating to around 4000 BC, by the 9th century AD the city of Shiraz was known to produce some of the finest wines in the Middle East. Thus it has proposed that Syrah red wine is named after Shiraz. Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics record the cultivation of grapes, and history attests to the ancient Greeks, Phoenicians. The growing of grapes would later spread to regions in Europe, as well as North Africa. Vitis vinifera cultivars were imported for that purpose, Grapes are a type of fruit that grow in clusters of 15 to 300, and can be crimson, black, dark blue, yellow, green, orange, and pink. White grapes are actually green in color, and are derived from the purple grape. Mutations in two genes of white grapes turn off production of anthocyanins, which are responsible for the color of purple grapes. Anthocyanins and other pigment chemicals of the family of polyphenols in purple grapes are responsible for the varying shades of purple in red wines. Grapes are typically an ellipsoid shape resembling a prolate spheroid, most grapes come from cultivars of Vitis vinifera, the European grapevine native to the Mediterranean and Central Asia. Vitis riparia, a vine of North America, is sometimes used for winemaking. It is native to the entire Eastern U. S. Vitis rotundifolia, the muscadines, used for jams and wine, are native to the Southeastern United States from Delaware to the Gulf of Mexico. Vitis amurensis is the most important Asian species, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization,75,866 square kilometers of the world are dedicated to grapes. Approximately 71% of world production is used for wine, 27% as fresh fruit
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Science
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Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. The formal sciences are often excluded as they do not depend on empirical observations, disciplines which use science, like engineering and medicine, may also be considered to be applied sciences. However, during the Islamic Golden Age foundations for the method were laid by Ibn al-Haytham in his Book of Optics. In the 17th and 18th centuries, scientists increasingly sought to formulate knowledge in terms of physical laws, over the course of the 19th century, the word science became increasingly associated with the scientific method itself as a disciplined way to study the natural world. It was during this time that scientific disciplines such as biology, chemistry, Science in a broad sense existed before the modern era and in many historical civilizations. Modern science is distinct in its approach and successful in its results, Science in its original sense was a word for a type of knowledge rather than a specialized word for the pursuit of such knowledge. In particular, it was the type of knowledge which people can communicate to each other, for example, knowledge about the working of natural things was gathered long before recorded history and led to the development of complex abstract thought. This is shown by the construction of calendars, techniques for making poisonous plants edible. For this reason, it is claimed these men were the first philosophers in the strict sense and they were mainly speculators or theorists, particularly interested in astronomy. In contrast, trying to use knowledge of nature to imitate nature was seen by scientists as a more appropriate interest for lower class artisans. A clear-cut distinction between formal and empirical science was made by the pre-Socratic philosopher Parmenides, although his work Peri Physeos is a poem, it may be viewed as an epistemological essay on method in natural science. Parmenides ἐὸν may refer to a system or calculus which can describe nature more precisely than natural languages. Physis may be identical to ἐὸν and he criticized the older type of study of physics as too purely speculative and lacking in self-criticism. He was particularly concerned that some of the early physicists treated nature as if it could be assumed that it had no intelligent order, explaining things merely in terms of motion and matter. The study of things had been the realm of mythology and tradition, however. Aristotle later created a less controversial systematic programme of Socratic philosophy which was teleological and he rejected many of the conclusions of earlier scientists. For example, in his physics, the sun goes around the earth, each thing has a formal cause and final cause and a role in the rational cosmic order. Motion and change is described as the actualization of potentials already in things, while the Socratics insisted that philosophy should be used to consider the practical question of the best way to live for a human being, they did not argue for any other types of applied science
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Institute for Advanced Studies in Basic Sciences
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The Institute for Advanced Studies in Basic Sciences is an advanced research center and graduate-level degree-granting institution in Zanjan, Iran. It was founded in 1991 by Prof. Yousef Sobouti, who was the director of the institute until 2010, after that Dr. Rasoul Khodabakhsh was the director till February 2014, and Dr. HamidReza Mohammadi Khalesifard has filled the position since then. The Institute awarded as one of the top advanced research centers in Iran, IASBS was also ranked the IRAN’s top university in 3 of 36 disciplines ranked by QS, including physics, chemistry, and mathematics. IASBS offers advanced degrees in Mathematics, Physics, Geophysics, Biophysics, as of 2008, the mathematics department offers Master of Science degrees in Computer Science with concentration on Artificial Intelligence and Graph & Algorithms. The university runs two programs in Information Technology, one of which is a joint program with Heriot-Watt University of the United Kingdom. The latter, lectured and examined in English language, involves passing modules in both universities at the time and each student is registered both at IASBS and Heriot-Watt University. The library of the university began in 1993 as a part of the physics department. It moved to a new building about 16 years later, the new library was opened in 2007 and named Torkaman Library after its donor. The library keeps over 20,000 books,6,500 of which are in Persian, in May 2002, Zanjan ICT incubator established by Dr. Jalil Khavandkar in the IASBS for development of technology and business. He followed this by establishing Zanjan Science and Technology Park in June 2009 and these two foundations are of the most successful techno-centers in Iran. Zanjan, a city with a population of 300,000,350 km to the north-west of Tehran, was chosen for the Institute for Advances Studies in Basic Sciences. The location was far enough from Tehran to not be affected by the distractions of the city but close enough to pursue the many ensuing official and budgetary problems in Tehran. Now, after ten years, IASBS has physics education at M. Sc. and Ph. D. levels, there will soon be education at Ph. D. level in the latter two departments. IASBS has 33 full-time faculty and some part-time members, the IASBS is a degree-granting institution with Masters and Doctoral programs only. Since September 2000, however, it has started a new program in physics for a group of distinguished high school graduates. The program, a first attempt at the level, will train these select group of students over a period of seven years. The director of the Institute, selected out of outstanding figures in the country, in cooperation with the Scientific Council of the Institute. The International Advisory Council of the Institute is composed of a host of scholars, the late Professor Abdus Salam was a member of this council
22.
Tabriz
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Tabriz is the most populated city in the Iranian Azerbaijan, one of the historical capitals of Iran, and the present capital of East Azerbaijan Province. Located in the Quru River valley between the ridge of the volcanic cones of the Sahand and Eynali mountains, Tabrizs elevation ranges between 1,350 and 1,600 metres above sea level. The valley opens up into a plain that slopes down to the eastern shores of Lake Urmia,60 kilometres to the west. With cold winters and temperate summers, the city is considered a summer resort, Tabriz is named Worlds Carpet and Crafts City, it is also appointed as the exemplary tourism city in 2018 by Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. With a population of 1.6 million, Tabriz is the biggest economic hub, the population consists mostly of Iranian Azerbaijanis and the most spoken language in the city is Azeri Turkish. Tabriz is a heavy industry hub for automobile, machine tools, refineries and petrochemical, textile. The city is famous for its handicrafts including hand-woven rugs and jewelry, local confectioneries, chocolates, dried nuts, and traditional food of Tabriz are recognized all around Iran as some of the best Iranian food. Tabriz is also a hub and a site for some of the most prestigious cultural institutes in the northwest of Iran. The city contains many historical monuments representing the transition of Iranian architecture in its long historical timelines. Most of the historical sites in the city belong to Ilkhanid, Safavid. From the early era, the city was pivotal in the development, movement. From the 19th century, it became the most important city in the country in numerous respects, as the closest Iranian hub to Europe, many aspects of the early modern modernisation in Iran started in Tabriz. During almost the entire Qajar period, it functioned as the seat for the prince as well. According to some sources, including Encyclopædia Britannica, the name Tabriz derives from tap-riz, in AD297, it became the capital of Tiridates III, king of Armenia. However, this story has an origin and no ancient source has recorded such event. This is based on accounts of Vardan, the Armenian historian in 13th century, the early history of Tabriz is not well-documented. The earliest inscription about Tabriz, referring to the city as Tarui or Tauris, is on the Assyrian King Sargon IIs epigraph in 714 BC, Tabriz has been chosen as the capital for some rulers commencing from Atropates era and his dynasty. A recent excavation at the site of the Iron Age museum, in the north of the Blue Mosque site, more likely the city has been destroyed multiple times either by natural disasters or by the invading armies
23.
East Azerbaijan Province
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Kurdistan roughly encompasses the northwestern Zagros and the eastern Taurus mountain ranges. Contemporary use of the term refers to four parts of Kurdistan, which include southeastern Turkey, northern Syria, northern Iraq, and northwestern Iran. Iraqi Kurdistan first gained autonomous status in a 1970 agreement with the Iraqi government, there is a province by the name Kurdistan in Iran, it is not self-ruled. Kurds fighting in the Syrian Civil War were able to control of large sections of northern Syria as government forces, loyal to Bashar al-Assad. Having established their own government, they called for autonomy in a federal Syria after the war, various groups, among them the Guti, Hurrians, Mannai, and Armenians, lived in this region in antiquity. The original Mannaean homeland was situated east and south of the Lake Urmia, the region came under Persian rule during the reign of Cyrus the Great and Darius I. At its zenith, the Roman Empire ruled large Kurdish-inhabited areas, corduene became a vassal state of the Roman Republic in 66 BC and remained allied with the Romans until AD384. After 66 BC, it passed another 5 times between Rome and Persia, corduene was situated to the east of Tigranocerta, that is, to the east and south of present-day Diyarbakır in south-eastern Turkey. When the Sasanian Marzban asked Mar Abdisho about his place of origin, he replied that according to his parents, they were originally from Hazza, a village in Assyria. However they were driven out of Hazza by pagans, and settled in Tamanon. Tamanon lies just north of the modern Iraq-Turkey border, while Hazza is 12 km southwest of modern Erbil, in another passage in the same document, the region of the Khabur River is also identified as land of the Kurds. According to Al-Muqaddasi and Yaqut al-Hamawi, Tamanon was located on the south-western or southern slopes of Mount Judi, Kurdistan in the Middle Ages was a collection of semi-independent and independent states called emirates. It was nominally under indirect political or religious influence of Khalifs or Shahs, a comprehensive history of these states and their relationship with their neighbors is given in the text of Sharafnama, written by Prince Sharaf al-Din Bitlisi in 1597. The emirates included Baban, Soran, Badinan and Garmiyan in the south, Bakran, Bohtan and Badlis in the north, the earliest medieval attestation of the toponym Kurdistan is found in a 12th-century Armenian historical text by Matteos Urhayeci. He described a battle near Amid and Siverek in 1062 as to have taken place in Kurdistan, the second record occurs in the prayer from the colophon of an Armenian manuscript of the Gospels, written in 1200. A later use of the term Kurdistan is found in Empire of Trebizond documents in 1336 and in Nuzhat-al-Qulub, written by Hamdollah Mostowfi in 1340. According to Sharafkhan Bitlisi in his Sharafnama, the boundaries of the Kurdish land begin at the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf and stretch on a line to the end of Malatya. In the 16th century, after prolonged wars, Kurdish-inhabited areas were split between the Safavid and Ottoman empires, a major division of Kurdistan occurred in the aftermath of the Battle of Chaldiran in 1514, and was formalized in the 1639 Treaty of Zuhab
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West Azerbaijan Province
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Kurdistan roughly encompasses the northwestern Zagros and the eastern Taurus mountain ranges. Contemporary use of the term refers to four parts of Kurdistan, which include southeastern Turkey, northern Syria, northern Iraq, and northwestern Iran. Iraqi Kurdistan first gained autonomous status in a 1970 agreement with the Iraqi government, there is a province by the name Kurdistan in Iran, it is not self-ruled. Kurds fighting in the Syrian Civil War were able to control of large sections of northern Syria as government forces, loyal to Bashar al-Assad. Having established their own government, they called for autonomy in a federal Syria after the war, various groups, among them the Guti, Hurrians, Mannai, and Armenians, lived in this region in antiquity. The original Mannaean homeland was situated east and south of the Lake Urmia, the region came under Persian rule during the reign of Cyrus the Great and Darius I. At its zenith, the Roman Empire ruled large Kurdish-inhabited areas, corduene became a vassal state of the Roman Republic in 66 BC and remained allied with the Romans until AD384. After 66 BC, it passed another 5 times between Rome and Persia, corduene was situated to the east of Tigranocerta, that is, to the east and south of present-day Diyarbakır in south-eastern Turkey. When the Sasanian Marzban asked Mar Abdisho about his place of origin, he replied that according to his parents, they were originally from Hazza, a village in Assyria. However they were driven out of Hazza by pagans, and settled in Tamanon. Tamanon lies just north of the modern Iraq-Turkey border, while Hazza is 12 km southwest of modern Erbil, in another passage in the same document, the region of the Khabur River is also identified as land of the Kurds. According to Al-Muqaddasi and Yaqut al-Hamawi, Tamanon was located on the south-western or southern slopes of Mount Judi, Kurdistan in the Middle Ages was a collection of semi-independent and independent states called emirates. It was nominally under indirect political or religious influence of Khalifs or Shahs, a comprehensive history of these states and their relationship with their neighbors is given in the text of Sharafnama, written by Prince Sharaf al-Din Bitlisi in 1597. The emirates included Baban, Soran, Badinan and Garmiyan in the south, Bakran, Bohtan and Badlis in the north, the earliest medieval attestation of the toponym Kurdistan is found in a 12th-century Armenian historical text by Matteos Urhayeci. He described a battle near Amid and Siverek in 1062 as to have taken place in Kurdistan, the second record occurs in the prayer from the colophon of an Armenian manuscript of the Gospels, written in 1200. A later use of the term Kurdistan is found in Empire of Trebizond documents in 1336 and in Nuzhat-al-Qulub, written by Hamdollah Mostowfi in 1340. According to Sharafkhan Bitlisi in his Sharafnama, the boundaries of the Kurdish land begin at the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf and stretch on a line to the end of Malatya. In the 16th century, after prolonged wars, Kurdish-inhabited areas were split between the Safavid and Ottoman empires, a major division of Kurdistan occurred in the aftermath of the Battle of Chaldiran in 1514, and was formalized in the 1639 Treaty of Zuhab
25.
Hamadan Province
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Hamadan Province, is one of the 31 provinces of Iran. The province of Hamadan covers an area of 19,546 km², in the year 1996, Hamadan province had a population of approximately 1.7 million people, according to the National Census held in 2011 the population of the Province was 1758268 people. In 2014 it was placed in Region 4 and these are part of the Zagros mountain range of Iran. Hamadan enjoys temperate warm summers and relatively cold winters, based on official statistics of 1997, the population of Hamadan county was 563,444 people. Persian language, Spoken by the majority of Hamadan city and county centers, azerbaijani language, Most of the people living in the north and western side of Hamadan city are speak Azeri as of their native language. Lurish, Most people living in the southern of province in Malayer, Nahavand and Samen Kurdish, in Hamadan city, 80% of the people identified their language as Persian, 12% Azeri and 8% Luri, Kurdish and Laki. In the counties of Hamadan province, the Hamadan county, 70% of the people are Persian, 22% Azeri and 8% Lurish, Kurdish, in Hamadan city, 97% of the people identified their language as Persian and 3% other languages. The population of Nahavand was 184160 with approximately 99% speaking Luri, the population of Malayer in 1997 was 297062 and approximately 45% speak Persian, 45% Luri and Laki and 10% Azeri. The population of Tooserkan county was 118945 in 1997 and the majority of the population is Luri, alongside a minority of Azeri of 22%. In Asadabad county, the population was 110077 and 63% were Persian, 19% Kurdish, 14% Azeri and 4% Luri, in Kabudarahang, the population in 1997 was 152318 with 90% speaking Azeri, 5% Persian and another 5% Kurdish. In Razan county, the population was 123790 with 99. 47% of the residents speaking Azeri and 0.53 speaking Kurdish. In Bahar country was 127600 with 86. 3% speaking Azeri,7. 9% speaking Kurdish,4. 5% speaking Persian and 1. 3% speaking Luri, Hamadan province is one of the most ancient parts of Iran and its civilization. Relics of this area confirm this fact, todays Hamedan is what is left of Ecbatana, The Medes capital before they formed a union with the Persians. The poet Ferdowsi says that Ecbatana was built by King Jamshid, according to historical records, there was once a castle in this city by the name of Haft Hessar which had a thousand rooms and its grandeur equalled that of the Babylon Tower. The structures of city are related to Diya Aku, a King of the Medes from 700 BC, according to Greek records, this territory was called Ekbatan and Hegmataneh by this King, thus transformed into a huge capital. During the Parthian era, Ctesiphon became capital of Persia, and Hamedan became the summer capital, after the Parthians, the Sassanids constructed their summer palaces in Hamedan as well. In the year 633 when the war of Nahavand took place and Hamadan came into the hands of the invading Arabs, at times it thrived, during the Buwayhids, it suffered plenty of damages. In the 11th century, the Seljuks shifted their capital from Baghdad to Hamadan once again, the city of Hamadan was always at risk during the rise and fall of powers
26.
Kurdistan Province
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The province of Kurdistan is 28,817 km² in area which encompasses just one-fourth of the Kurdish inhabited areas of Iran or Iranian Kurdistan. It is located in the west of Iran, in Region 3, and bound by Iraq on the west, the capital of Kurdistan Province is the city of Sanandaj. Other counties with their cities are Marivan, Baneh, Saqqez, Qorveh, Piranshahr, Bijar, Kamyaran, Dehgolan, Diwandarreh. The mountainous lands of this area first encouraged Iranian-speaking tribes to settle in this region after their immigration to Iran. It was from here where the first plan to overthrow the Assyrian Empire began, leading to their defeat in 612 BCE, during the next few hundred years, the area of present-day Kurdistan Province became the arena of conflict between various invaders, including the Mongols and Timurids. Its steady decline began in the 16th century, when sea traffic replaced the famous Silk Road and it remained the capital for nearly one-and-a-half centuries, until, in 1372 CE, the government moved to Hassanabad fort,6 km south of Sanandaj. Around 14th century, people from Ardalan tribe established themselves in Sinne as the rulers of this region, according to Sharafnama written by Sharaf al-Din Bitlisi, the earliest known leader of the tribe, Bawa Ardalan, was a descendant of Ahmad bin Marwan, who ruled in Diyarbakır. He settled down among the Gorani people in Kurdistan and toward the end of the Mongol period took over the Şare Zor region and he is considered to be the founder of the Ardalan principality. The territories of Zardiawa, Khanaqin, Kirkuk, and Kifri, the capital city of the principality was first in Sharazor, but was moved to Sinne later on. During the reign of Shah Ismail I, the founder of Safavid dynasty, when Soleiman Khan Ardalan came to power in 1630 CE, the throne was transferred to Sanandaj, and, from then on, the rulers contributed to the flourishing and development of the area. The Ardalan Dynasty continued to rule the region until the Qajar monarch Nasser-al-Din Shah ended their rule in 1867 CE, Kurdistan Province is a mountainous region that can be topographically divided into a western and an eastern section at Sanandaj. As a result of its elevation and mountains, Kurdistan province has many rivers, lakes, glaciers and caves, consequently, Kurdistan has always attracted a large number of tourists and fans of mountaineering, ski and water-sports. The Zarrineh River,302 km long, is one of the longest rivers of this province and its banks offer great opportunities for recreation and the rivers plentiful water renders itself ideal for water sports. This river runs northwards and ultimately pours into Lake Urmia, the Sirvan River is another prominent river in this province. It runs over a distance, eventually to join the Tigris in Iraq. The banks of river are remarkably attractive. The Simineh River is also an important river in this province, a large number of marine species and birds live on the banks of the provinces numerous rivers which they seem to find ideal habitats. Lake Zarivar is the most beautiful water-way of the province, which lies at the feet to high mountains, the lake has a maximum depth of 50 m and an average depth of 3 m
27.
Gilan Province
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Gilan Province is one of the 31 provinces of Iran. It lies along the Caspian Sea, in Irans Region 3, west of the province of Mazandaran, east of the province of Ardabil and it also borders the Republic of Azerbaijan in the north, as well as Russia across the Caspian Sea. The northern part of the province is part of territory of South Talysh, at the center of the province is the main city of Rasht. Other towns in the province include Astara, Astaneh-e Ashrafiyyeh, Fuman, Lahijan, Langrud, Masouleh, Manjil, Rudbar, Roudsar, Shaft, Talesh, the main harbor port is Bandar-e Anzali. In antiquity, this area was a province of Persia known as Daylam, the Daylam region corresponds to the modern region of Gīlān. It seems that the Gelae entered the south of the Caspian coast and west of the Amardos River in the second or first century B. C. E. Pliny identifies them with the Cadusii who were living there previously and it is more likely that they were a separate people, had come from the region of Dagestan, and taken the place of the Kadusii. Their languages shares certain features with Caucasian languages. It was the place of origin of the Buyid dynasty, the people of the province had a prominent position during the Sassanid dynasty, so that their political power extended to Mesopotamia. The first recorded encounter between Gilanis and Deylamite warlords and invading Muslim Arab armies was at the Battle of Jalula in 637 AD, Deylamite commander Muta led an army of Gils, Deylamites, Persians and people of the Rey region. Muta was killed in the battle, and his army managed to retreat in an orderly manner. However, this appears to have been a Pyrrhic victory for the Arabs, unlike the Russians, Muslim Arabs never managed to conquer Gilan as they did with other provinces in Iran. Gilanis and Deylamites successfully repulsed all Arab attempts to occupy their land or to them to Islam. In fact, it was the Deylamites under the Buyid king Muizz al-Dawla who finally shifted the balance of power by conquering Baghdad in 945, Muizz al-Dawla, however, allowed the Abbasid caliphs to remain in comfortable, secluded captivity in their palaces. In the 9th and 10th centuries AD, Deylamites and later Gilanis gradually converted to Zaidite Shiism, Muslim chronicles of Varangian invasions of the littoral Caspian region in the 9th century record Deylamites as non-Muslim. These chronicles also show that the Deylamites were the warriors in the Caspian region who could fight the fearsome Varangian vikings as equals. Deylamite infantrymen had a very similar to the Swiss Reisläufer of the Late Middle Ages in Europe. Deylamite mercenaries served as far away as Egypt, Islamic Spain, buyids established the most successful of the Deylamite dynasties of Iran
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Qazvin Province
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The Qazvin Province is one of the 31 provinces of Iran. It is in the north-west of the country, and its center is the city of Qazvin, the province was put as part of Region 1 upon the division of the provinces into 5 regions solely for coordination and development purposes on June 22,2014. The province had a population of 1.2 million people by the 2011 census, the ratio of men to women is 50.7 to 49. 3%. 99. 61% of the population were Muslims and 0. 39% of the rest came from other religions. The literacy rate is over 82%, ranking 7th in Iran, the province covers 15821 km² between 48–45 to 50–50 east of Greenwich Meridian of longitude and 35–37 to 36–45 north latitude of the equator. The province is bounded on the north by Mazandaran and Gilan, on the west by Hamedan and Zanjan, on the south by Markazi, all are part of the central chain of Alborz. The lowest point of the province is in Tärom e Soflä, the climate of the province in the northern parts is cold and snowy in winters and temperate in summers. In the southern parts the climate is mild with cold winters. The majority of the people of the province as well as the city of Qazvin are Persian people, other minorities languages include Azeri, Tati, Kurdish, Luri and Romani. Qazvin was the location of a capital of the Persian Empire. It is a provincial capital today that has been a center of mass throughout history. Archeological findings in the Qazvin plain reveal the existence of agricultural settlements as far back as 7000 BC. The name “Qazvin” or “Kasbin” is derived from Cas, an ancient tribe that lived south of the Caspian Sea millennia ago, the Caspian Sea itself in fact derives its name from the same origin. Qazvin geographically connects Tehran, Isfahan, and the Persian Gulf to the Caspian seacoast and Asia Minor, Qazvin has been a hotbed of historical developments in Iranian history. In the early years of the Islamic era Qazvin served as a base for the Arab forces, destroyed by Genghis Khan, the Safavid monarchs made Qazvin the capital of the Safavid empire in 1548 only to have it moved to Isfahan in 1598. During the Qajar Dynasty and contemporary period, Qazvin has always one of the most important governmental centers due to its proximity to Tehran. Abbas Mirza, a Crown Prince and Minister of Commerce, was also the governor of Qazvin, Qazvin is situated close to Alamut, where the famous Hasan-i Sabbah, founder of the secret Ismaili order of the Assassins, operated from. Qazvin is where the coup d’etat of General Reza Khan, with his Russian-trained Cossack brigade, was launched from – which led to the founding of the Pahlavi dynasty in 1921, Qazvin contains several archeological excavations dating back 9000 years ago
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Ardabil Province
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Ardabil Province is one of the thirty-one provinces of Iran. It is in the northwest of the country, in Regions 3, bordering the Republic of Azerbaijan, the provinces of East Azerbaijan, Zanjan and its administrative centre is the city of Ardabil. The province was established in 1993 from the part of East Azerbaijan. Many tourists come to the region for its cool climate during the hot summer months, the winters are bitterly cold, with temperatures plummeting to −25 °C. Its famous natural region is the Sabalan mountains, the province is considered the coldest province in Iran by many. Large parts of the province are green and forested, famous athletes such as Ali Daei and Hossein Rezazade are originally from Ardabil. Ardabils capital stands about 70 km from the Caspian Sea and has an area of 18011 km², neighbouring the Caspian Sea and the Republic of Azerbaijan, the city is of great political and economic significance. The province has been blessed with natural beauty and numerous sights. The natural features of the province of Ardabil are mentioned in the Avesta, according to which Zoroaster was born by the river Aras, during the Islamic conquest of Iran, Ardabil was the largest city in Azarbaijan, and remained so until the Mongol invasion period. Shah Ismail I started his campaign to nationalize Irans government and land from here, yet Ardabil remained an important city both politically and economically until modern times. The province is divided into 10 counties, Ardabil, Bilasavar, Germi, Khalkhal, Kowsar, Meshginshahr, Namin, Sarein, Nir, and Parsabad. District of Arasbaran was transferred to the province of Ardabil from East Azerbaijan in 2010, Ardabil is the seat of the sanctuary and tomb of Shaikh Safî ad-Dîn, eponym of the Safavid Dynasty Kulliye. It has many hot springs and beautiful landscapes and these attract tourists. The mineral springs of Ardabil are Beele-Darreh, Sareyn, Sardabeh and Booshloo and it also has many beauty lakes, the largest of which are Neor, Shoorabil, ShoorGel, NouShahr and Alooche, which are the habitats of some species of water birds. The beautiful Lake Neor is located in a mountainous area 48 km south-east of the city of Ardabil and it covers an area of 2.1 km² and has an average depth of 3 metres. It is fed by springs in the lake bed, Lake Shoorabil is located in a hilly area south of the city of Ardabil and covers an area of 640,000 m². The surface of the lake is covered with a white layer of minerals. Near the lake there is the complex of Shoorabil
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Alpine climate
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Alpine climate is the average weather for the regions above the tree line. This climate is referred to as a mountain climate or highland climate. There are multiple definitions of alpine climate, one simple definition is the climate which causes trees to fail to grow due to cold. According to the Holdridge life zone system, alpine climate occurs when the mean biotemperature of a location is between 1.5 and 3 °C, which prevents tree growth. Biotemperature is defined as the temperature, except all temperatures below 0 °C are treated as 0 °C, in the Köppen climate classification, the alpine climate is part of Group E, along with the polar climate, where no month has a mean temperature higher than 10 °C. The temperature profile of the atmosphere is a result of an interaction between radiation and convection, sunlight in the visible spectrum hits the ground and heats it. The ground then heats the air at the surface, however, when air is hot, it tends to expand, which lowers its density. Thus, hot air tends to rise and transfer heat upward and this is the process of convection. Convection comes to equilibrium when a parcel at air at a given altitude has the density as its surroundings. Air is a conductor of heat, so a parcel of air will rise. This is known as a process, which has a characteristic pressure-temperature curve. As the pressure gets lower, the temperature decreases, the rate of decrease of temperature with elevation is known as the adiabatic lapse rate, which is approximately 9.8 °C per kilometre of altitude. Note that the presence of water in the atmosphere complicates the process of convection, water vapor contains latent heat of vaporization. As air rises and cools, it becomes saturated and cannot hold its quantity of water vapor. The water vapor condenses, and releases heat, which changes the rate from the dry adiabatic lapse rate to the moist adiabatic lapse rate. The actual lapse rate, called the lapse rate, is not constant. Therefore, moving up 100 metres on a mountain is roughly equivalent to moving 80 kilometres towards the pole and this relationship is only approximate, however, since local factors, such as proximity to oceans, can drastically modify the climate. As the altitude increases, the form of precipitation becomes snow
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Azerbaijanis
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Azerbaijanis or Azeris, also known as Azerbaijani Turks, are a Turkic ethnic group in the Caucasus living mainly in Iranian Azerbaijan and the independent Republic of Azerbaijan. They are the second-most numerous ethnic group among the Turkic peoples after Anatolian Turks and they are predominantly Shii Muslims, and have a mixed cultural heritage, including Turkic, Iranian, and Caucasian elements. They comprise the largest ethnic group in Republic of Azerbaijan and by far the second-largest ethnic group in neighboring Iran, the worlds largest number of ethnic Azerbaijanis live in Iran, followed by Azerbaijan. The formation of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic in 1918 established the territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan, despite living on two sides of an international border, the Azeris form a single ethnic group. However, northerners and southerners due to nearly two centuries of separate social evolution of Iranian Azerbaijanis and Azerbaijanis in Russian/Soviet-influenced Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan is believed to be named after Atropates, a Persian satrap who ruled in Atropatene circa 321 B. C. The name Atropates is the Hellenistic form of Aturpat which means guardian of fire, itself a compound of ātūr fire + -pat suffix for -guardian, -lord, present-day name Azerbaijan is the Arabicized form of Azarbaigān. The latter is derived from Ādurbādagān, itself ultimately from Āturpātakān meaning the land associated with Aturpat, the Russian Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary, written in the 1890s, also referred to Tatars in Azerbaijan as Aderbeijans, but noted that the term had not been adopted widely. In Azerbaijani language publications, the expression Azerbaijani nation referring to those who were known as Tatars of the Caucasus first appeared in the newspaper Kashkul in 1880, Ancient residents of the area spoke the Old Azeri, which belonged to the Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. In the 11th century AD with Seljukid conquests, Oghuz Turkic tribes started moving across the Iranian plateau into the Caucasus, the influx of the Oghuz and other Turkmen tribes was further accentuated by the Mongol invasion. Today, this Turkic-speaking population is known as Azerbaijani, caucasian-speaking Albanian tribes are believed to be the earliest inhabitants of the region where the modern-day Republic of Azerbaijan is located. Early Iranian settlements included the Scythians in the ninth century BC, following the Scythians, the Medes came to dominate the area to the south of the Aras River. Ancient Iranian people of the Medes forged a vast empire between 900 and 700 BC, which the Achaemenids integrated into their own empire around 550 BC, during this period, Zoroastrianism spread in the Caucasus and in Atropatene. Alexander the Great defeated the Achaemenids in 330 BC, but allowed the Median satrap Atropates to remain in power, following the decline of the Seleucids in Persia in 247 BC, an Armenian Kingdom exercised control over parts of Caucasian Albania. Caucasian Albanians established a kingdom in the first century BC and largely remained independent until the Persian Sassanids made their kingdom a vassal state in 252 AD, sassanid control ended with their defeat by Muslim Arabs in 642 AD, through the Muslim conquest of Persia. Muslim Arabs defeated the Sassanids and Byzantines as they marched into the Caucasus region, the Arabs made Caucasian Albania a vassal state after the Christian resistance, led by Prince Javanshir, surrendered in 667. Between the ninth and tenth centuries, Arab authors began to refer to the region between the Kura and Aras rivers as Arran, during this time, Arabs from Basra and Kufa came to Azerbaijan and seized lands that indigenous peoples had abandoned, the Arabs became a land-owning elite. Conversion to Islam was slow as local resistance persisted for centuries and resentment grew as small groups of Arabs began migrating to cities such as Tabriz and this influx sparked a major rebellion in Iranian Azerbaijan from 816–837, led by a local Zoroastrian commoner named Bābak
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Kurds
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The Kurds are culturally and linguistically closely related to the Iranian peoples and, as a result, are often themselves classified as an Iranian people. A recent Kurdish diaspora has also developed in Western countries, primarily in Germany, the Kurdish language refers collectively to the related dialects spoken by the Kurds. It is mainly spoken in parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria. Kurdish holds official status in Iraq as a national language alongside Arabic, is recognized in Iran as a regional language, the Kurdish languages belong to the northwestern sub‑group of the Iranian languages, which in turn belongs to the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European family. According to Mackenzie, there are few features that all Kurdish dialects have in common. And the fact that this reflects the sense of ethnic identity and unity of the Kurds. The number of Kurds living in Southwest Asia is estimated at close to 30 million, Kurds comprise anywhere from 18% to 20% of the population in Turkey, possibly as high as 25%,15 to 20% in Iraq, 10% in Iran, and 9% in Syria. Kurds form regional majorities in all four of these countries, viz. in Turkish Kurdistan, the Kurds are the fourth largest ethnic group in West Asia after the Arabs, Persians, and Turks. The total number of Kurds in 1991 was placed at 22.5 million, with 48% of this number living in Turkey, 18% in Iraq, 24% in Iran, and 4% in Syria. Recent emigration accounts for a population of close to 1.5 million in Western countries and this groups population was estimated at close to 0.4 million in 1990. The land of Karda is mentioned on a Sumerian clay-tablet dated to the 3rd millennium B. C. This land was inhabited by the people of Su who dwelt in the regions of Lake Van. Other Sumerian clay-tables referred the people, who lived in the land of Karda, as the Qarduchi and the Qurti. Many Kurds consider themselves descended from the Medes, an ancient Iranian people, the claimed Median descent is reflected in the words of the Kurdish national anthem, We are the children of the Medes and Kai Khosrow. The Kurdish languages form a subgroup of the Northwestern Iranian languages like Median, some researchers consider the independent Kardouchoi as the ancestors of the Kurds. The term Kurd, however, is first encountered in Arabic sources of the seventh century, the Kurds have ethnically diverse origins. During the Sassanid era, in Kar-Namag i Ardashir i Pabagan, after initially sustaining a heavy defeat, Ardashir I was successful in subjugating the Kurds. In a letter Ardashir I received from his foe, Ardavan V, the usage of the term Kurd during this time period most likely was a social term, designating Northwestern Iranian nomads, rather than a concrete ethnic group
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Azerbaijan
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Azerbaijan, officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, is a country in the South Caucasus region, situated at the crossroads of Southwest Asia and Southeastern Europe. It is bound by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west and Iran to the south. The exclave of Nakhchivan is bound by Armenia to the north and east, Iran to the south and west, the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic proclaimed its independence in 1918 and became the first democratic state in the Muslim orient world. The country was incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1920 as the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic, the modern Republic of Azerbaijan proclaimed its independence on 30 August 1991, prior to the official dissolution of the USSR in December 1991. In September 1991, the Armenian majority of the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region seceded to form the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, the region and seven adjacent districts outside it became de facto independent with the end of the Nagorno-Karabakh War in 1994. These regions are recognized as part of Azerbaijan pending a solution to the status of the Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan is a unitary semi-presidential republic, the country is a member state of the Council of Europe, the OSCE and the NATO Partnership for Peace program. It is one of six independent Turkic states, a member of the Turkic Council. Azerbaijan has diplomatic relations with 158 countries and holds membership in 38 international organizations and it is one of the founding members of GUAM, the Commonwealth of Independent States and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. Its term of office began on 19 June 2006, Azerbaijan is also a member state of the Non-Aligned Movement, holds observer status in World Trade Organization and is a correspondent at the International Telecommunication Union. The Constitution of Azerbaijan does not declare an official religion and all political forces in the country are secularist. However, the majority of the population are of a Shiite Muslim background, Azerbaijan has a high level of human development which ranks on par with most Eastern European countries. It has a rate of economic development and literacy, as well as a low rate of unemployment. According to the Davos World Economic Forum, Azerbaijans economy has scored 37th place within 138 countries in 2016, Global Competitiveness Index 2015 indicates that Azerbaijan scores highest in its region. ASAN services, established with Presidential Decree, are known for eliminating bribery. ASAN Service has been awarded with United Nations Public Service Award 2015, the ruling party, the New Azerbaijan Party, has been accused of authoritarianism and human rights abuses. The original etymology of name is thought to have its roots in the once-dominant Zoroastrianism. In the Avesta, Frawardin Yasht, there is a mention of âterepâtahe ashaonô fravashîm ýazamaide, the name Atropates itself is the Greek transliteration of an Old Iranian, probably Median, compounded name with the meaning Protected by the Fire or The Land of the Fire
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Iranian peoples
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The Iranian peoples or Iranic peoples are a diverse Indo-European ethno-linguistic group that comprise the speakers of the Iranian languages. Proto-Iranians are believed to have emerged as a branch of the Indo-Iranians in Central Asia in the mid 2nd millennium BC. In the 1st millennium AD, their area of settlement was reduced as a result of Slavic, Germanic, Turkic and Mongol expansions and many being subjected to Slavicisation. The Iranian peoples include Balochs, Kurds, Gilaks, Lurs, Mazanderanis, Ossetians, Pashtuns, Pamiris, Persians, Tajiks, Talysh people, the term Iran derives directly from Middle Persian Ērān and Parthian Aryān. The Middle Iranian terms ērān and aryān are oblique plural forms of gentilic ēr- and ary-, there have been many attempts to qualify the verbal root of ar- in Old Iranian arya-. The following are according to 1957 and later linguists, Emmanuel Laroche, Old Iranian arya- being descended from Proto-Indo-European ar-yo-, meaning assembler. Harold Walter Bailey, ar- to beget, unlike the Sanskrit ā́rya-, the Old Iranian term has solely an ethnic meaning. Today, the Old Iranian arya- remains in ethno-linguistic names such as Iran, Alan, Ir, in the Iranian languages, the gentilic is attested as a self-identifier included in ancient inscriptions and the literature of Avesta. The earliest epigraphically attested reference to the word occurs in the Bistun Inscription of the 6th century BC. The inscription of Bistun describes itself to have composed in Arya. As is also the case for all other Old Iranian language usage, in royal Old Persian inscriptions, the term arya- appears in three different contexts, As the name of the language of the Old Persian version of the inscription of Darius I in the Bistun Inscription. As the ethnic background of Darius the Great in inscriptions at Rustam Relief and Susa, as the definition of the God of Iranians, Ohrmazd, in the Elamite version of the Bistun Inscription. In the Dna and Dse, Darius and Xerxes describe themselves as an Achaemenid, a Persian, son of a Persian, although Darius the Great called his language arya-, modern scholars refer to it as Old Persian because it is the ancestor of the modern Persian language. The trilingual inscription erected by the command of Shapur I gives a clear description. The languages used are Parthian, Middle Persian, and Greek, tou Arianon ethnous despotes eimi, which translates to I am the king of the kingdom of the Iranians. In Middle Persian, Shapur says ērānšahr xwadāy hēm and in Parthian he says aryānšahr xwadāy ahēm, the Avesta clearly uses airiia- as an ethnic name, where it appears in expressions such as airyāfi daiŋˊhāvō, airyō šayanəm, and airyanəm vaējō vaŋhuyāfi dāityayāfi. In the late part of the Avesta, one of the homelands was referred to as Airyanəm Vaējah which approximately means expanse of the Iranians. The homeland varied in its range, the area around Herat
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Satrap
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Satraps were the governors of the provinces of the ancient Median and Achaemenid Empires and in several of their successors, such as in the Sasanian Empire and the Hellenistic empires. The word satrap originates ultimately from Old Persian xšaçapāvan, Sanskrit kshatrapam or kshtrapa, from xšaça, in Greek, the word was rendered as satrápēs —which later borrowed into Latin as satrapes—from a Western Iranian cognate xšaθrapā. In modern Persian the descendant of xšaθrapāvan is shahrbān, but the components have undergone semantic shift so the word now means town keeper. The first large use of satrapies, or provinces, originates from the conception of the First Persian Empire under Cyrus the Great. However, provincial organization originated during the Median era from at least 648 BCE, up to the time of the conquest of Media by Cyrus the Great, emperors ruled the conquered lands, through client kings and governors. The chief difference was that in Persian culture the concept of kingship was indivisible from divinity and he was responsible for the safety of the roads, and had to put down brigands and rebels. But the satrap was allowed to have troops in his own service, the great satrapies were often divided into smaller districts, the governors of which were also called satraps and also hyparchs. The distribution of the great satrapies was changed repeatedly, and often two of them were given to the same man, as the provinces were the result of consecutive conquests, both primary and sub-satrapies were often defined by former states and/or ethno-religious identity. When his office became hereditary, the threat to the authority could not be ignored. Rebellions of satraps became frequent from the middle of the 5th century BCE, darius I struggled with widespread rebellions in the satrapies, and under Artaxerxes II occasionally the greater part of Asia Minor and Syria was in open rebellion. The last great rebellions were put down by Artaxerxes III and they would ultimately be replaced by conquering empires, especially the Parthians. In the Parthian Empire, the power rested on the support of noble families who ruled large estates. City-states within the empire enjoyed a degree of self-government, and paid tribute to the king, shahrabs ruled both the city and the surrounding rural districts. Exceptionally, the East Roman Empire also adopted the title satrap for the princes that governed one of its Armenian provinces. The Western Satraps or Kshatrapas were Saka rulers in the western and central part of the Sindh region of Pakistan, and it is also used in modern times to refer to the loyal subservient lieutenants or clients of some powerful figure, in politics or business. In Portuguese, Italian and Spanish, the word not only carries the aforementioned ancient historical meaning. It can refer as well to living in luxurious and ostentatious conditions or to individuals who act astutely. The College of Pataphysics used the title Transcendent Satrap for certain of its members, including Marcel Duchamp, Jean Baudrillard, in the Serbian language, satrap is used to mock a person who displays servile tendencies to an authority figure
Iran
Zanjan Province
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