Iran is the vast Asian country that almost internally occupies the great plateau that extends from the Tigris Bank to the valley of India and from the Aralo-Caspian lowland to the Arabian Sea. In various moments of its recent history it has been called Persia but this name actually defines only a part of its territory, the one called Fars and corresponds to the central southern part of the great and ancient Persian civilization. The current name Iran, literally “Land of Ariani ”has an older origin, a much broader character and defines the ethnic aspect of a large part of its population. Much of Iran corresponds to what is called the Iranian Plateau, with the exception of the northern belt along the Caspian Sea and the southern region of Khuzestan, overlooking the Persian Gulf.It is one of the mountainous countries in the world with a dominated landscape. from mountains, vast plateaus and mountain ranges which separate the various drainage basins and plains from each other. Unfortunately, this is also accompanied by a rather active seismicity due to the fact that the Euro-Asian and African tectonic plates meet right here with those of the Arab and Indian subcontinents. The plateau is crossed by calcareous and crystalline mountain ranges, interposed with chaste desert basins. The most mountainous part is the west and north west, covered by the Caucasus chain and the Zagros Mountains, with the climate of the Zard Kuh as the highest point 4.548 meters. To the north of the country, south of the Caspian, is the very high chain of the Alborz mountains which with the summit of Mount Damavand reaches even 5,610 m and is the highest mountain in Eurasia west of the Hindu kuh. A third chain, to the east, divides Iran from Afghanistan and culminates in the Teftan volcano. The northern belt is covered with dense and rainy alpine forests, of which a large part has been protected by national parks. The mountains collect much of the humidity coming from the Capico and transform it into abundant precipitation on their north side but at the same time, they shield the central plateau further south. For this reason, the central and southern parts of the country are mostly covered by steppes, semi-steppes or arid regions. The central eastern part is occupied by the Dasht and Kavir, the largest desert in Iran, followed further east by the smaller Dashte lut and several salt lakes.These deserts were formed by the very high surrounding mountain ranges, which do not allow sufficient quantities of rain clouds to reach these reasons. for this same reason the river courses are quite sparse, and marked by a strong seasonality, with a greater frequency in the northern region near the coast. The watercourses coming from the external slopes of the mountain ranges quickly reach the sea, while those coming from the internal slopes are generally lost in the sands of the closed basins. The rivers that flow into the Caspian are numerous. But short and fast, the largest is the Sefid (White River) which runs through very narrow gorges, before throwing itself into the sea with a large Delta. To the south, towards the Persian Gulf, the only navigable river is the Karoon, which flows into Iraq, in the shatt-al-Arab together with the Tigris and Euphrates.
Between the mountains there are often enclosed collection lakes of the neighboring mountains, of which the largest is the salt lake Urumieh, located at 1294 meters of altitude almost on the border with Armenia.
The harshness of the soil always made agricultural development difficult and, for this reason, Iran was a relatively poor and backward country until the 1950s, when the nationalization of oil resources triggered rapid economic growth, accompanied by much more rapid and profound processes of modernization, even if there were no significant improvements in the living conditions of the popular masses. The Khomeinist Islamic revolution then adopts a socialist form of statism (closure to foreign investments, nationalization of banks and insurance companies, etc.)
but in reality throughout the 1980s the war against Iraq absorbed a large part of the national budget forcing the country into a war economy and causing enormous damage. with the end of the war there was a gradual opening up to the market economy and privatization, however slowed by the embarkation promoted by the West for the fight against Islamic terrorism and for the control of nuclear research activities. since 2000 the government has undertaken a policy of diversifying the economy to free the country from dependence from oil. Agriculture remains important but has been heavily penalized by the flight to urban centers of a large part of the active population. Most of the cultivated area is reserved for cereals, especially wheat, but barley, rice, cotton, pistachios are also widespread, of which Iran is the first world producer.
The great extension of the steppes particularly favors the breeding of sheep, from which wool is obtained for the manufacture of the famous carpets exported all over the world.
The resources of the subsoil are numerous, with deposits of coal, iron, copper, zinc, manganese.
But Iran’s great resource is oil whose fields, as well as in Khuzestan, are located in Gorgan, on the southeastern shore from the Caspian to Faris in the south around Qom and on the continental shelf. Iran has established itself as the fourth largest producer in the world (behind Saudi Arabia, the United States and Russia) and exports mainly to India, China, Southeast Asia, Japan and Mediterranean Europe.
Iran in figures;
the data refer to the official UN source and are updated to December 2019.

Surface: 1,645,258 sq km
population: 82,091,000 – Italy: 60,380,000
Density: 40ab / sq km – Italy: 199.4 sq km
Capital: Tehran
Human development index: 0.797 – Italy: 0.883
Form of government: Islamic Republic
Annual population growth: 1.19% – Italy = 0.08%
Child growth: 3% – Italy = 0.4%
Life expectancy: Males 68- females 71 – Italy: Males 77- females 83
Urban population: 64.7% Italy: 67.1%
Ethnic groups: Persians 51%, Azeris 24%, Kurds 7%, Armenians 0.5%,
Language: Farsi
Religion: Shiite Muslims 93.9% – Sunnis 5.7% – Zoroastrians 0.2%, Christians 0.06%
Unemployment: 12.5% ​​- Italy 13%
Roads: 166,035 km – Italy: 450,610
railways: 12,998 km – Italy 16,779 km
Merchant Marine: 395 units
Illiteracy: 15%
Access to drinking water: 82%
Hospital beds: 1.6 per 1000 inhabitants – Italy: 3.01 per 1000 inhabitants