A Brief Note On The Islamic Republic Of Iran

Submitted By lmichela
Words: 5330
Pages: 22

Established in 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran is a country rich in history, culture, scientific growth and economic opportunity. Despite sanctions imposed by western civilizations due to Iran's nuclear activity and resistance from more traditional leaders who oppose western cultural influences, Iran represents an opportunistic market for business and industry expansion. I. Demographics of Iran: With a population of 80,840,713 million as of July 2014,1 Iran is the second largest country per capita in the Middle Eastern region after Egypt2 and 19th globally falling just below Turkey and Germany and just above the Congo, Thailand, France, United Kingdom and Italy. The population growth rate of Iran is 1.22% per annum, putting it at the 97th country in the world in this respect.3 The nationality of the people of Iran is Iranian and consists of the following different ethnicities: Persian 61%, Azeri 16%, Kurd 10%, Lur 6%, Baloch 2%, Arab 2%, Turkmen and Turkic tribes 2%, and other 1%.4 A lot can be inferred about the Iranian people from this distribution. First of all, because Iran has mutual borders with 7 different countries, different ethnicities are segmented around different parts of Iran based on the borders Iran shares with its neighbors, most of which used to be parts of the Great Persian Empire. Iran is comprised of 31 different provinces called Ostans. The most populated province is Tehran, with 16.21%5 of the country’s population, followed by Khorasan Razavi at 7.98%. The least populated province is Ilam, which contains 0.7% of Iran’s population.6 There are many languages spoken in Iran, with Persian (Farsi) being the official language which 53% of the population speaks fluently. The country also has a number of people who are fluent in the Azeri and Turkic dialects, Kurdish, Gilaki and Mazandarani, Luri, Balochi, and Arabic.7 Islam is the national religion of Iran. The majority of Iranians are Shi’a Muslims, making up over 99% of the population. Jews and Christians are the religious minorities in Iran with only 0.3% of the population practicing those religions.8 The median age of Iranians is 28.3, with males having a median age of 28 and females having a median age of 28.69.

As of 2011, the urban population of Iran constituted 69.1% of the total population, growing at a rate of 1.25% per annum. Therefore, Iran’s population is considered to be mainly living in cities, with the largest segment of the population of 7.3 million people living in the capital, Tehran.10 Life expectancy of Iranians is 73.4 years, with males expecting to live less than females.11 The biggest population segment of Iranians is male and