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Iran

Iran (Persian: ایران) is a Middle Eastern country located in southwestern Asia that until 1935 was referred to in the West as Persia. It borders Pakistan (909km of border) and Afghanistan (936km) to the east, Turkmenistan (1000km) to the northeast, the Caspian Sea to the north, Azerbaijan (500km) and Armenia (35km) to the northwest, Turkey (500km) and Iraq (1458km) to the west, and finally the waters of the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman to the south. In 1979, a revolution led by the Ayatollah Khomeini established a theocratic Islamic Republic, which makes the present full name of the country Islamic Republic of Iran (جمهوری اسلامی ایران).

Iran geography

Iran's landscape is dominated by rugged mountain ranges that separate various basins or plateaus from one another. The populous western part is the most mountainous, with ranges such as the Zagros and Alborz Mountains, the latter of which also contains Iran's highest point, the Damavand at 5,607 m. The eastern half consists mostly of uninhabited desert basins with the occasional salt lake.

The only large plains are found along the coast of the Caspian Sea and at the northern end of the Persian Gulf, where Iran borders on the mouth of the Arvand river (Shatt al-Arab). Smaller, discontinuous plains are found along the remaining coast of the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz and the Sea of Oman. The Iranian climate is mostly arid or semiarid, though subtropical along the Caspian coast. Iran is considered to be one of the fifteen states that comprise the so-called "Cradle of Humanity"

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Iran".