Iran

 (1) __**IRAN**__

**__GEOGRAPHY:__** Iran is in the Middle East. Iran has borders with ten different countries. The countries it borders with are Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan,Oman, United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Kuwait, and Turkey. (3) The Middle east is south of the Caspian sea, and its north of the Persian Gulf. In the north is the Elburz Mountains. They rise up to 18,603 feet high at Mount Damavend.(4)

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__**HISTORY OF IRAN﻿:**__ Iran was not always Iran, Before in 1500 B.C todays Iran was ruled by the Persians and the Medes, untill King Cryus overthrew Medes. Iran was still able to remain independent for most of its long history. Today Iran population is pretty big at 70 million people. With a huge different type of ethnic groups, Back into history it was different. (4)

The majority of the population of Iran is Shiite Muslim. There is also non- muslims people that have other religions. Its about two percent of the people. (3)
 * __RELIGION:__ **

**__LANGUAGES SPOKEN:__** In Iran, Persian and other Persian dialects, Turkic, Luri, Balock and Arabic are spoken.(6)

**__GOVERNMENT IN IRAN__:** The government type in Iran is Islamic Republic, And before then was Persia. There form isnt like ours in the United States because here we have presidents. Iran get theres by appoionting someone. That someone was Ayatollah Ali Hoseini Kahamenei. And in the US we have government terms that run for four years at one time. It just so happens that Ayatollah was appointed for life by the Council of Experts. The head of the government is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad since 2005.(2)

__**ECONOMY**__ The economy of Iran is the eighteenth largest in the world. It is predicted that by 2015 Iran will be the 12th largest in the world. They make most of their money off of oil and gas. High oil prices in the past years has made Iran over $100 billions in foreign exchange reserves.(8)

**__ETHNIC DIVISIONS:__** (2)
 * Persian || 51% ||
 * Azerbaijani || 24% ||
 * Gilaki and Mazandarani || 8% ||
 * Kurd || 7% ||
 * Arab || 3% ||
 * Turkman || 2% ||
 * Lur || 2% ||
 * Balock || 2% ||
 * Other || 1% ||

This is a table that tells us the different types of ethnic groups that all live together in Iran.(2) __**POPULATION**__ 76,923,300 (July 2010 est) (9)

__**INTERESTING FACTS:**__

-Iran was formerly known as Persia (3) -The word Iran means the 'Land of the Aryan's'(3) -Iran has the world's best caviar (3) -Unemployment in Iran is about 12%(3) -Iran has 331 airports. Six are international (3) -Persian rugs are the best rugs in the world (3)

Read about the oil refinery at [] Read about this CIA spy group network broken up <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #810081; display: block; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; text-align: left; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: auto;">[] Learn why the Iranian president aide was arrested.[]
 * __CURRENT EVENTS IN IRAN:__**

media type="youtube" key="upzUlk04NQw" width="425" height="350" align="center" (10)

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**__TEST QUESTIONS:__** 1. What was Iran for formerly know as? 2. What are the colors of the Iranian flag? 3. How many countries border Iran? 4. What is the religion in Iran. 5. What is Iran's population?

__**CITED SOURCES:**__ <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">(1<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">)w <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #810081; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; text-align: left; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: auto;">ww.cia.gov <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: auto;">(2) www.countrywatch.com (3) [|www.inheritpersia.com] <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: auto;">(4)<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0000ff; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; text-align: left; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: auto;">[|www.infoplease.com/ipa/A010764.html] <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">(5) [|www.mideastweb.org/iranhistory.htm] <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">(6) [|www.panasianbiz.com] (8) [] (9) [|www.wilkepedia.org/wiki/demographics_of_Iran_] (10) [|www.youtube.com] (11) [|www.google.com]

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">Jonathan Casamajor & Joey Boccia <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">Period E <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">World Studies PX - Iran