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Definition: Iran from The Macquarie Dictionary
1.

a republic in south-western Asia, on the Persian Gulf; a monarchy until 1979 when Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi was deposed and an Islamic republic instituted.

1~648~000 km2 Persian (Farsi), also Turkic, Kurdish and other minority languages Iranian rial Tehran

Official name Islamic Republic of Iran Formerly Persia

Iran

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
(ērän', ĭrăn'), officially Islamic Republic of Iran, republic (2015 est. pop. 79,360,000), 636,290 sq mi (1,648,000 sq km), SW Asia. The country's name was changed from Persia to Iran in 1935. Iran is bordered on the north by Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and the Caspian Sea; on the east by Afghanistan and Pakistan; on the south by the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman; and on the west by Turkey and Iraq. The Shatt al Arab forms part of the Iran-Iraq border. Tehran is the capital, largest city and the political, cultural, commercial, and industrial center of the nation. Physiographically, Iran lies within the Alpine-Himalayan mountain system and is composed of a vast central plateau rimmed by mountain ranges and limited lowland regions. Iran is subject to numerous and often severe earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. The Iranian Plateau (alt. c.4,000 ft/1,200 m), which extends beyond the low ranges of E Iran into Afghanistan, is a region of interior drainage. It consists of a…
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Full text Article Iran

From New Americans: A Guide to Immigration Since 1965
Iranian immigrants are sometimes referred to by others as Persians, since “Iran” and “Persia” are used interchangeably in the U.S. Many Iranian immigrants call themselves Persian, in an effort to conjure up images of the old Persian empire and disassociate themselves from the Islamic Republic of…
| 3,940 words
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Full text Article Iran

From Collins English Dictionary
n 1 a republic in SW Asia, between the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf: a monarchy until an Islamic revolution in 1979 headed by the Ayatollah Khomeini when the Shah was obliged to leave the country. Consists chiefly of a high central desert plateau almost completely surrounded by mountains, a…
| 121 words
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Full text Article Iran

From Encyclopedia of Intelligence & Counterintelligence
Known as Persia until 1935, Iran was a wealthy secular state ruled by Mohammad Reza Shah until it became an Islamic republic in 1979. After the Shah went into exile, conservative Islamic clerics took control of the government. The extent of public opposition to the Shah, and his sudden downfall…
| 1,321 words
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Full text Article Iran

From Philip's Encyclopedia
Iran
The barren central plateau of the Islamic Republic of Iran covers about half the country. It includes the Great Salt Desert ( Dasht-e-Kavir ) and the Great Sand Desert ( Dasht-e-Lut ). The Elburz Mountains (Alborz), border the it to the N and contain Iran's highest peak, Damavand (5,604m…
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History Until the late 1960s, most Iranian films aimed for an escapist style somewhere between Hollywood and Bollywood. After the Islamic Revolution of 1979, however, foreign imports were restricted and native Iranian cinema was closely censored by the clerics. Film-makers worked around these…
| 609 words
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Iran
Iran is the largest Non-Arab country in the Middle East; its people are Persian in origin. In ancient times, Iran was called Persia, and it was at the centre of a great empire. The Persian language has survived from that time and is spoken by most Iranians. The country consists of a huge, central…
| 438 words , 4 images
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Full text Article Iran

From The American Heritage Guide to Contemporary Usage and Style
The degree to which the pronunciation of the names of foreign countries and cities is Anglicized varies from place to place. As foreign locales become more familiar to English speakers, the pronunciation of these foreign names often becomes less Anglicized. Prague was once pronounced (prāg) in…
| 216 words
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Full text Article IRAN

From The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Military and Diplomatic History
Few relations between states have been as traumatic and laced with emotion as those between the United States and Iran, whose absence of diplomatic relations since 1979 belies a reality in which each state occupies a central position in the popular and political perceptions of the other. Indeed, …
| 3,612 words
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Full text Article Iran

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
(ērän', ĭrăn'), officially Islamic Republic of Iran, republic (2015 est. pop. 79,360,000), 636,290 sq mi (1,648,000 sq km), SW Asia. The country's name was changed from Persia to Iran in 1935. Iran is bordered on the north by Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and the Caspian Sea; on the east by…
| 7,025 words
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Full text Article Iran

From Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World
© CENGAGE LEARNING/GALE
Iran refers in a narrow geopolitical sense to the modern nation-state of Iran, or Persia, as it was formerly called, and in a broader ethnocultural sense to lands inhabited or ruled over by peoples speaking Iranian languages (originally called Aryans). The two are by no means synonymous, as the…
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