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. These are all areas that historically were part of the Persian Empire and therefore were influenced by Persian culture. Iranians tend to refer to the realm of Iranian cultural influence as “Iran Zamin,” meaning, in the Persian language, “the Land of Iran.”

The term “Iran” is a derivative of the word “Aryan” (the noble). Iranians were a branch of Aryan tribes who entered Iran from central Asia sometime during the second millennium B.C. and settled in the western and south-central parts of what is now modern Iran.

While Aryans are believed to be the ancestors of modern Iranians, there were many other groups who lived in Iran before their arrival in the region. As a matter of fact, the history of the earliest sedentary cultures, based on existing archaeological sites, can be traced back some 18,000 years. And evidence suggests that humans occupied the region as long ago as 100,000 years.
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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 characterizes the country’s general physical appearance. The interior basin is known as the Iranian Plateau. According to geologists, the plateau is an ancient former seabed that took its present shape during the Quaternary period about 200,000 years ago. It was formed and shaped by the uplifting and folding effects of three giant plates pressing against each other.

The interacting plates are the Arabian Plate, the Eurasian Plate, and the Indian Plate. The continuous process of squeezing and pressing resulted in a considerable folding at the edges, and some folding in the interior, which eventually formed Iran’s present mountain ranges.
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