Where Is Persia?
Where is Iran?
Iran is located in the Middle East bordering the Gulf of Oman and the Caspian Sea and it is sandwiched between Iraq in the west and Pakistan in the East. The official name of the country is Jamhouri-e-Islami-e-Iran or Islamic Republic of Iran, in English. Persia is also used to refer to the nation but mostly in unofficial contexts.
The country boasts of one of the oldest civilizations on the earth. In the eighth century BC, agricultural communities started settling in the country. Those primitive people had developed a script, a religion and a whole culture by the fourth century BC. The early Iranians worshipped fire and at times they were the most powerful nation on earth. The Sassanid Empire was the last domestic empire and it fell to the armies of Islam in 651 BC. The advent of Islam changed the face and soul of the nation forever. The country lost its script, its religion, its ancient culture and even its language is littered with Arabic words. Historians say, the Persians did not give up their past but simply adjusted themselves to the new realities. They cite the example of the prevalence of the Shi’a branch of Islam in Iran. Arabs don’t think highly of the Iranian version of Islam and some of them even call the Iranians traitors. The modern state of Iran was established in a revolution brought about by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979. The revolution overthrew the king of Iran, who was an incompetent ruler and many Iranians considered him an American puppet forced upon them.
Oil and gas still account for more than 45% of the national income. The Service sector is the biggest employer. Although the government is projected by the international media as fundamentalist, it is probably the only Islamic nation with a science-friendly regime. The numbers of research papers produced by Iranian scientists increased ten times during 1996 to 2004. The Iranian Space Agency launched its first satellite in 2006 and more than 77% of the population is literate and life expectancy is 71 years.
