Aryans were nomadic people in search of better land when they entered the Iranian plateau toward the end of the second millennium B.C. The reason for their migration may have been that they exhausted the natural resources, such as croplands and pastures, in their homeland. A group of these immigrants settled along the western slopes [...]

What we call Iran today is part of a much greater geographical area that once was home to a great culture and civilization. Today, traces of Iranian culture can be seen outside modern Iranian borders in places such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, Central Asia, the Caucasus, eastern Turkey, Iraq, and the southern Persian Gulf coastal region. [...]

Iran is an arid country. It is characterized by shortage of water, higher evaporation than precipitation, low relative humidity, intense solar radiation during hot summer days, high daily and seasonal temperature ranges, torrential (but sporadic) spurts of precipitation, and damaging sand and dust storms. Through centuries of coping with these climatic conditions, Iranians learned to [...]

Iran is located between two major depressions, the Caspian Sea to the north and the Persian Gulf to the south. A series of mountains rising steeply from these depressions, along with other isolated mountain chains, form a high outer rim that encloses the interior basin. This configuration provides Iran with an overall bowl-shaped topography that [...]

Extending between 25 and 40 degrees north latitude and 44 and 63 degrees east longitude, Iran covers an area about twice the size of California, Oregon, and Washington combined. With an area of some 636,296 square miles (1,648,000 square kilometers), it is also three times the size of France. Situated in the heart of the [...]