Iran Essays - Pahlavi Dynasty, Western Asia, Iranian Peoples, Iran

Iran Iran is a country located in the Middle East. Below it is the Gulf of Oman and to the west is the Persian Gulf. On the east is Afghanistan and to the north is Turkmenistan and the Caspian Sea. The total area of Iran is 632,457 square miles, which is slightly larger than Alaska and about 6 times smaller than the United States. Iran has about 65,612,000 people which is about 100 people per square mile. That means that the United States has close to 3 times the size in population than Iran. Climate and Geography Iran is split up into three regions of land forms. The first is the coast along the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman which has high temperatures of 120 degrees Fahrenheit. In the inland part of the plateau in can also hit 120 degrees. In the capital city Tehran, which is located at the edge of the Elburz Mountains, the average temperature is about 36 degrees Fahrenheit in January and 85 degrees Fahrenheit in July. In the nearby city of Abadan, which is on the coast of Iran up in the corner of the Persian Gulf, the temperatures are about the same, even though it's right by the Persian Gulf getting the warm air from the the water. The Plateau of Iran is very dry throughout most of it because the annual precipitation is about 1 or 2 inches. On the coast of the Persian Gulf they get 10 inches to 15 inches per year. In the Zagros and Elburz Mountain ranges, the precipitation is about 50 inches annually. Rivers in Iran are low in the summer time because most of them are on flat land. The only rivers that stay high are the ones that run from mountains. Like the Karun River, which flows from the Zagros Mountains into Khorramshahr. It is supposedly the most navigable river in Iran. The highest peak in Iran is Mount Damavand at 18,934 feet, it is part of the Elburz mountain range. The second highest peak is Mount Kalar, which is 14,100 feet high. The Karun river flows southward from beside this mountain. History In 549 B.C. Iran was called Persia and ruled by Cyrus the Great. He united the Medes and Persians to make the country we know of today as Iran. In the process of doing this, he also restored Jerusalem to the Jews and conquered Babylonia. About 200 years later, in 333 B.C., Alexander the Great came in and took over Persia, but a century later the Persians regained Persia from the help of the Pathians. In 226 A.D. the Persians lost and gave over Persia to the Sassanian Persians. Later in the 7th century, Arab people brought over the religion of Islam to Persia, pushing aside their first religion of Zoroastrian. This initially dominant religion still stuck around for hundreds of years despite the Islamic take over. In the eleventh century, Seljuk Turks dominated for a Persia before overrun by Mongols under the rule of Genghis Khan. Then came Tamelane and his Mongol Hordes, and after that the Turkomans took over. The Turkomans were overrun by Ismail I, who said that he was a descent from the great Ali. He became extremely popular and began the Safavid dynasty which lasted from 1502 to 1736 during his rule Shiism became the national religion. In 1736 the Afghans conquered Ali and started the Afshar dynasty followed by the Zand dynasty in 1750. The Zand dynasty ended in 1794 when Agha Muhammad Khan, a ruler who was cruel to the people promoted himself to Shah which is ruler of the country, and began the Qajar dynasty. In 1923, Reza Shah Pahavi came into Iran and pronounced himself prime minister. In 1925, he became elected Shah and ended the Qajar dynasty. Pahavi?s son took over in the 1940s when World War II started. Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi married and had a son, Prince Reza Pahlavi in 1960. He maintained close alliance with the United States during this time by signing a defense agreement. In 1963, the Shah formed a committee to form a program of modernization through land reform and industrializing Iran. This plan caused corruption in many of