Area Total | 1,648,195 sq km |
Climate | mostly arid or semiarid, subtropical along Caspian coast |
Natural Resources | petroleum, natural gas, coal, chromium, copper, iron ore, lead, manganese, zinc, sulfur |
Imports | UAE 29.8%, China 12.7%, Turkey 4.4%, South Korea 4%, Germany 4% (2017) – industrial supplies, capital goods, foodstuffs and other consumer goods, technical services |
Government | theocratic republic |
Capital | Tehran |
Population | Population field listing 83,024,745 (July 2018 est.) |
Ethnicity | Persian, Azeri, Kurd, Lur, Baloch, Arab, Turkmen and Turkic tribes |
Language | Persian (official), Azeri Turkic and Turkic dialects, Kurdish, Gilaki and Mazandarani, Luri, Balochi, Arabic |
Exports | China 27.5%, India 15.1%, South Korea 11.4%, Turkey 11.1%, Italy 5.7%, Japan 5.3% (2017) – petroleum 60%, chemical and petrochemical products, fruits and nuts, carpets, cement, ore |
News about Iran
- I am scared - Labor’s cruel deportation bill is an attack on my family and countless others like us | Betia Shakibaby Betia Shakiba on March 28, 2024
How can a country that prides itself on its commitment to human rights turn its back on those most in need?As a refugee, advocate, and human rights lawyer, I have dedicated my life to standing up for those who have been left behind, particularly refugees and Iranians seeking safety and a better life in Australia. On Tuesday, I found myself in parliament, […]
- Scientists link 2019 Iranian landslide to building of damby Kate Ravilious on March 27, 2024
Researchers studying satellite data show slope near village of Hoseynabad-e Kalpush moved after reservoir began to be filledIn recent decades there has been a dramatic rise in the number of dams being built, to keep pace with demand for water or to provide power. Concerns have been raised about increased landslide activity near new dams, and now a study has […]
- Celluloid Underground review – love letter to a lifelong passion for film and illicit treasure troveby Peter Bradshaw on March 25, 2024
Iranian critic Ehsan Khoshbakht’s personal essay about a man’s smizdat film print collection shows the lengths cinephiles will go to to protect the art formThe passion of cinephilia is the subject of this absorbing personal essay movie from Iranian critic and film historian Ehsan Khoshbakht, now co-director of the Il Cinema Ritrovato festival in […]
- ‘I felt an urgent need for empathy’: the Iranian-American director uniting her two cultures in filmby Sarfraz Manzoor on March 21, 2024
After 9/11, Maryam Keshavarz realised she wanted to change the way Muslims were portrayed in the US media. She explains why she drew on her childhood for her award-winning new movieWhen Maryam Keshavarz was a young girl growing up in New York City in the 1980s, she would spend her summer holidays travelling to Iran, from where her parents had migrated. As […]
- The Persian Version review – Iranian-American family comedy cranks up the charmby Cath Clarke on March 20, 2024
Maryam Keshavarz’s semi-autobiographical film uses flashbacks to revel in the 80s and examine the different world of 1960s IranEnergetic, funny and unashamedly sentimental, this is a warm-hearted comedy written and directed by Iranian-American film-maker Maryam Keshavarz, even if her semi-autobiographical story about life in a traditional Iranian family […]
- ‘The little girl in Persepolis has grown up’: Marjane Satrapi on life after her hit graphic novel – and her radical new workby Angelique Chrisafis on March 16, 2024
As a new wave of protests sweep Iran, the author explains why she has returned to drawing. Plus: an extract from her new collection of protest cartoonsWhen Marjane Satrapi began drawing again, depicting the violence recently enacted by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, she was so disturbed that she felt physical pain. “I get finger cramps when I have to draw […]
- UN must block Iranian missile supply to Houthis in Yemen, UK and US sayby Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor on March 14, 2024
Calls during Yemen briefing come as missile believed to have been launched by Houthis strikes a vessel off AdenThe US and UK have called for a UN maritime inspectorate to do more to prevent Iranian missiles reaching Houthi-controlled ports in the west of Yemen.The calls during a UN security council briefing on the crisis in Yemen came as a missile believed […]
- Hair-plaiting for the Iranian resistance: Hoda Afshar’s best photographby Interview by Ella Braidwood on March 13, 2024
‘This was inspired by a daily ritual in which female fighters in the mountains plait each other’s hair while chanting: “Woman, life, freedom.” It was a response to the death of Mahsa Jina Amini in Iran’ I was born in Tehran but have been living in Australia since 2007. This was taken as the uprisings in Iran were unfolding, following the 2022 […]
- A Separation director Asghar Farhadi cleared of plagiarism claims, says agentby Agence France Presse on March 13, 2024
The double Oscar winner’s film A Hero won the grand prix at Cannes in 2021 but was the subject of an alleged copyright infringement brought by a former studentIranian director Asghar Farhadi has been cleared of charges of plagiarism over his film A Hero brought by one of his students, the agency representing him said on Wednesday.The film, about a […]
- The global outlook is perilous. But here are three things Labour can do to make the world a safer place | Simon Tisdallby Simon Tisdall on March 12, 2024
Keir Starmer should phase out Trident, reinstate overseas aid – and prevail upon Iran to help calm the Middle EastOur writers and experts name the pledges Labour must include in its manifestoAn incoming Labour government will face a daunting array of foreign and defence policy challenges, many of which are beyond the ability of any one country to resolve. […]
- Diplomats fear growing power of Iranian factions that want nuclear weaponsby Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor on March 10, 2024
Warnings that war in Gaza and Iran’s lack of cooperation on its nuclear programme are strengthening hand of hardlinersThere are growing fears among diplomats in the US and Europe that Iran’s largely unmonitored nuclear programme and the destabilisation caused by the Gaza conflict are strengthening the hand of Iranian factions that back the development […]
- UN: Iran committed crimes against humanity during protest crackdownby Deepa Parent on March 8, 2024
Fact-finding mission concludes regime murdered, imprisoned, tortured and raped those who protested the death of Mahsa AminiThe Iranian regime’s human rights violations during its brutal suppression of protests in 2022 amount to crimes against humanity, a UN fact-finding mission (FFM) has said.Established by the UN human rights council in November 2022 – […]
- ‘Every girl in Iran is born into a cage’: exiled Kurdish women taking up arms in Iraqby Keiwan Fatehi and Finn Blythe on March 4, 2024
Kurdish women living in Iran face discrimination for their ethnicity as well as their gender. The photographer Keiwan Fatehi spoke to those who left their homeland claiming oppression, lack of rights or fear for their safety and joined the peshmerga military• Fatehi is an Iranian Kurdish photographer based in Iraq. These images are part of his Gender and […]
- Iran election turnout drops to 41% as reformists criticise pollby Patrick Wintour and Haroon Janjua on March 2, 2024
Conservatives expected to remain firmly in charge after parts of media claim ‘election boycott campaign’ has failedThe turnout in Iran’s parliamentary elections appears to have dropped to 41%, a record low, but according to the official figures, not quite to the levels of mass abstention that some surveys had predicted.Polls closed at midnight on […]
- Iran election: turnout sinks to record low as polls closeby Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor on March 2, 2024
Extending polling hours fails to boost turnout beyond previous low from 2020 election, strengthening claims people are rejecting the regime by staying at homePolling closed in Iran’s parliamentary elections on Friday night, with officials claiming the nationwide turnout was a record low of 40.6%.After 10 hours of voting, turnout had stood at only 27%, and […]
- Iranian singer given three years in jail for song about Mahsa Amini protestsby Staff and agencies in Tehran on March 1, 2024
Shervin Hajipour sentenced for ‘inciting and provoking people to riot to disturb national security’An Iranian pop singer whose song became an anthem during mass protests more than a year ago has been sentenced to at least three years in prison.Shervin Hajipour, 26, wrote and published Baraye during nationwide demonstrations triggered by Mahsa Amini’s […]
- ‘They can’t grieve’: families in limbo as Channel boat victims left unidentifiedby Maïa Courtois, Simon Mauvieux, Maël Galisson and Tom Levitt on March 1, 2024
French authorities accused of failing to investigate the fates of refugees who have gone missing at sea while trying to cross by boat to the UK, with families still waiting for news of loved onesLate in the evening of 14 December last year four friends made their way to a beach near Dunkirk. By midnight, they were sitting together in a sinking boat in the […]
- Iranians expected to shun first election since death of Mahsa Aminiby Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor on March 1, 2024
Turnout of 38.5% or less predicted despite moves to make voting easier and allow more candidatesA majority of Iran’s angry and disillusioned electorate are predicted to stay away from parliamentary elections on Friday, viewing the process as a masquerade of democracy intended to give legitimacy to a regime that has failed to deliver on living standards, […]
- Where freedom meets repression: Australian academics tread a fine line over ties to Iranby Jonathan Yerushalmy on February 24, 2024
More than 20 papers involving collaboration have been published in the past year, despite the government warning against joint research projects In April 2023 the Iranian government was in the midst of a brutal crackdown. Weeks earlier, thousands had been on the streets, protesting against the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old detained for an […]
- ‘The Iranian regime holds all the cards’: children of jailed Nobel winner on learning to live without their motherby Annie Kelly and Deepa Parent on February 19, 2024
Human rights activist Narges Mohammadi has been in prison in Iran for most of her children’s lives. Now living as exiles in Paris, they say they will never lose hope of seeing her againLast December, just an hour or so after she stood on the world stage to accept the Nobel peace prize for her mother, Iranian human rights activist Narges Mohammadi, […]