Iran At A Glance

A Quick Look At The Nation

(CBS)  Below is a quick look at the Republic of Iran, based on a country guide from Library of Congress.


Geography: Iran, about a fifth of the size of he continental United States, is a central plateau surrounded on three sides by mountain ranges. It is bordered by the Caspian Sea on the north, Turkey and Iraq on the west, the Persian Gulf on the south and Afghanistan and Pakistan to the east.

Climate: Iran has an arid, desert climate because the country gets relatively little rainfall. Winters are cold and snowy in the north and milder in the south. Summers are very hot in the south, slightly milder in the north.

Population: Iran is home to about 48 million people, of whom 45.6 million are Iranian citizens. Refugees come to Iran from Afghanistan and Iraq.

Cities: Tehran is the capital and the country's largest city, with about 6 million people. Mashhad is the only other city with more than a million people. Other large cities are Esfahan, Tabriz, and Shiraz.

Language: Persian is the country 's official language and the principal language of most of the country's citizens. The Kurds speak a variety of closely related dialects, which in Iran are collectively called Kirmanji. Also spoken are Turkic languages, Arabic and Assyrian.

Society: Iranians have a very strong sense of class structure with the three broad groups — wealthy, middle-class and poor — divided into many subgroups. Many in Iran believe in segregation of the sexes; they want women to be veiled in public and work only at home.

Religion: Ninety percent of Iranians are Muslim, but most belong to the minority Shia Islam sect rather than the Sunni Islam faith that a majority of the world's Muslims follow.

Health Care: Citizens get only minimally adequate health care and the infant mortality rate is high. Most of the country's 12,000 physicians and 1,700 dentists are based in the cities and 70 percent of the specialists are in Tehran.

Industry: Oil production is the main industry. Non-oil industry is mainly agricultural products, carpets, textiles, and war-related manufacturing such as munitions