🇮🇷 Iran

The Median dynasty first brought the Iranian plateau under a single political authority. This unification laid the political foundation for the later Persian empires.

The Median king allied with the Babylonian ruler to sack the Assyrian capital, leading to the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The victory removed the dominant regional power and cleared the way for Median expansion, which later also dissolved Urartu.

After the Persian tribes were united under Cambyses I, Cyrus overthrew Median rule and established the largest-ever Iranian state. He conquered the Lydian and Neo-Babylonian empires, creating a realm far larger than Assyria.

Cyrus's son subdued the last major independent power of the region, causing the collapse of Egypt's twenty-sixth dynasty. The conquest extended Achaemenid control across the whole ancient Near East.

Darius overthrew the Achaemenid monarch Bardiya, ruling first from Susa and launching the great construction programme at Persepolis. He also improved the imperial road system, including the Royal Road from Susa to Sardis, strengthening administrative reach across the empire.

Athenian support for a revolt in Miletus in 499 BC led to the sacking of Sardis and triggered decades of war. Mardonius re-subjugated Thrace and absorbed Macedon, and Xerxes I overran much of mainland Greece, but defeats at Plataea and Salamis cost Persia all its European footholds.

Alexander defeated Darius III at Granicus, Issus and Gaugamela, completing the conquest of Persia by 331 BC. After his death the empire fragmented, and his general Seleucus I Nicator founded the Seleucid Empire over Iran, Mesopotamia, Syria and Anatolia.

Originally Seleucid vassals from the Parni tribe of the northeastern steppes, the Arsacids progressively displaced Seleucid rule. Their conquest of Babylonia in 142 BC secured Iranian self-rule, and the death of Antiochus VII Sidetes in 129 BC marked the collapse of the Seleucid Empire.

Ardashir revolted against the Arsacids and killed the last Parthian ruler, ending five centuries of Parthian rule weakened by civil war. The Sasanians built a centralised bureaucracy, revived Zoroastrianism as a unifying ideology, and at their zenith controlled Iran, Iraq, the Caucasus, the Levant and parts of Central and South Asia.

Arab rulers adopted Persian administrative and court practices, and provincial governors were often Persianized Arameans or ethnic Persians. Middle Persian remained the caliphate's official language until Arabic was adopted towards the end of the seventh century.

Exhausted by the long Byzantine–Sasanian wars, the Sasanian state fell to Arab Muslim armies. Most Iranians gradually converted to Islam, though much of Persian civilisation was absorbed rather than discarded by the new Islamic polity.

Northern regions such as Daylam, Tabaristan and Mount Damavand remained outside Arab control thanks to inaccessible terrain. A combined Daylamite–Dabuyid army defeated the Arab general and forced him to retreat, preserving indigenous rule in the Caspian highlands.

Resentment among non-Arab Muslim converts at their lower social standing fuelled anti-Umayyad revolt. The Umayyads were replaced by the Abbasids, and Iranians subsequently became the scribes, bureaucrats and writers of the Islamic Caliphate.

As caliphal power diminished, the Tahirids in Khorasan (821–873), Saffarids in Sistan (861–1003), Samanids (819–1005) and Buyids (934–1062) established autonomous Iranian rule and ousted Arab governors. The period brought an Iranian cultural renaissance, ending only with the Seljuk Turkish conquest in the 11th century.

The Muslim share of the population climbed from roughly 40 per cent in the mid-9th century to close to 90 per cent by the end of the 11th. Conversion was aided by the Persian nationality of the rulers, while Persians simultaneously worked to protect and revive their language and culture.

The Seljuk Turks, who had defeated the Buyids in the mid-11th century and dominated the Abbasids, were displaced by the Khwarazmians. The new empire was culturally Persianate but of Turkic mamluk origin.

After the Mongol Empire fractured in civil war following Möngke Khan's death, Hulegu governed the southwest including Iran and was legitimised by a fatwa from the Shia scholar Ali ibn Tawus al-Hilli. Iran experienced a cultural renaissance under the Ilkhanate, and Ghazan Khan's conversion to Islam in the late 13th century distanced the state from other Mongol realms.

Bukhara fell in 1220 and the Khwarazmian Empire was destroyed; Bukhara, Samarkand, Herat, Tus and Nishapur were razed and their populations slaughtered. Further conquests culminated in the fall of Baghdad and the end of Abbasid rule in 1258.

The plague swept the country amid the political fragmentation that followed the Ilkhanate's collapse. The demographic loss compounded the disruption of the post-Mongol period.

The death of Ghazan's nephew plunged the Ilkhanate into civil war, dividing Iran between the Jalayirids, Muzaffarids, Sarbadars and Kartids. Political fragmentation persisted until the Timurids reunified the country.

Timur, from a Turkified tribe of Mongols, built a power base in Transoxiana and invaded Iran in 1381, eventually conquering most of it and ending the country's division. His campaigns were notorious for brutality, including the ordered massacre of 70,000 people at Isfahan in 1387.

Timurid control of Iran collapsed in 1452 when the bulk of the country passed to the Qara Qoyunlu. They in turn were conquered by the Aq Qoyunlu in 1468, whose ruler Uzun Hasan and his successors held Iran until the Safavid rise.

The Safavids reunified Iran as a cohesive entity under native rule and established Twelver Shia Islam as the official religion, laying the framework for the modern Iranian state. The dynasty ruled from 1501 to 1722 with a brief restoration from 1729 to 1736, governing through a bureaucracy of checks and balances designed to guarantee the shah's total power.

Rivalries in Khorasan drew a Hotak invasion that ended with the siege of Isfahan and the fall of the Safavid state. The years between 1722 and the Qajar rise were marked by widespread political turmoil and rival bids for power, as neither the Safavids nor the Hotaks could establish control.

Described as the last great Asiatic military conqueror, Nader Shah's campaigns briefly created an empire spanning territory from the Caucasus and Iraq to India and Central Asia, making Iran a leading world power. His military spending, however, had a ruinous effect on the Iranian economy, and his death was followed by anarchy as rival commanders fought for power.

The Zands took control of much of the country after Nader Shah's death, staking their claim first on behalf of the Safavid puppet Ismail III and later on behalf of the Iranian people. Karim Khan reigned from 1751 to 1779 as the dominant power in Iran.

He proclaimed himself ruler in 1789, defeated the Zands in 1794 and was crowned in 1796, then deposed the Afsharid Shahrokh Shah to reunify Iran under a single ruler. Iran nonetheless lost its status as a leading world power under the Qajars.

Successive defeats stripped Iran of significant territory in the Caucasus to the Russian Empire. Britain simultaneously became involved in southern Iran to counter Russian presence in the north, which threatened British India, subjecting Iran to sustained great-power interference.

Drought, shifting agricultural priorities and poor governance produced a catastrophic famine. Estimates of the death toll range from several hundred thousand to four million Iranians, a significant portion of the population.

Both species were extirpated from the country, the Caspian tiger becoming extinct. Iran later established over 200 protected areas, more than 30 of them national parks, to preserve biodiversity.

The revolution forced the creation of a national legislature, introducing representative institutions to Qajar Iran. It marked the beginning of constitutional politics in the country.

Following the 1921 coup d'état, Reza Shah ousted the last Qajar shah in 1925 and founded an authoritarian government built on nationalism, militarism, secularism and anti-communism with strict censorship. He reorganised the army, government administration and finances and introduced schools, railways and modern amenities, though critics called his rule a corrupt police state offering only surface-level modernisation.

Reza Khan, an army officer who had risen to power through a 1921 coup, was crowned shah in December after parliament voted to depose the last Qajar ruler. He pursued rapid, centralising modernisation over the following sixteen years.

Since 1925 all male citizens aged 18 must serve about 14 months in the air force or the IRGC. The system underpins a force of over 610,000 active troops and 350,000 reservists, giving Iran one of the world's highest shares of citizens with military training.

The country, known as Persia until 1935, adopted the name Iran under Reza Shah Pahlavi.

After Iran refused Allied demands to expel German residents, British and Soviet forces invaded and overwhelmed the weak Iranian army. Reza Shah was forced to abdicate in favour of his son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and Iran became the major conduit of Lend-Lease aid to the Soviet Union through the Persian Corridor while remaining officially neutral.

At the Tehran Conference, Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill pledged to guarantee Iran's post-war independence and boundaries. The declaration gave Iran a formal international assurance of sovereignty amid foreign occupation.

Founded by Mahmud Javadipur, Hosein Kazemi and Hushang Ajudani, the gallery anchored a contemporary art scene originating in the late 1940s. Official encouragement in the 1950s produced artists such as Marcos Grigorian, building on the school of fine art established in 1928.

Following his founding of the country's first national music society in the late 1940s, the school institutionalised Iranian musical training. The Tehran Symphony Orchestra had been founded in 1933, and Iranian rock emerged in the 1960s with hip hop following in the 2000s.

The programme dates to the 1950s and was revived by the Shah in the early 1970s, who argued Iran needed alternative fuel sources for when oil reserves ran out. It was expanded after the Islamic Revolution, and its full fuel cycle including enrichment became the focus of international negotiations and sanctions.

The nationalisation, passed by parliament in March, brought Iran's oil industry under state control for the first time and triggered a British-led boycott of Iranian oil. The dispute contributed directly to the crisis that led to Mosaddegh's overthrow two years later.

State control was followed by expansion of fishery infrastructure enabling an estimated 700,000 tonnes of fish harvested annually from southern waters. Inland catches rose from 1,100 tonnes in 1976 to 110,175 tonnes by 2004, and Iran became the world's largest producer and exporter of caviar.

Ruling as an autocrat with strong American support, the Shah pursued economic, social, agrarian and administrative reforms. Islamic leaders criticised the programme and the land reform produced mixed results, contributing to his growing unpopularity.

Iranian military officers under General Fazlollah Zahedi, backed by the CIA and MI6 in Operation Ajax and a black propaganda campaign, overthrew prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh on 19 August, after Mosaddegh had nationalised the oil industry and forced the Shah into brief exile following an initial failed coup. The coup restored Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to full power; Mosaddegh was convicted of treason and placed under house arrest, his foreign minister was executed, and Zahedi suppressed the National Front and the Tudeh Party. The US role, acknowledged by Washington decades later, remained a lasting source of Iranian grievance toward the United States.

Rapid growth was followed by a dramatic fertility decline from 6.5 children per woman to about 1.7, cutting the growth rate to around 1.39 per cent by 2018. Urbanisation rose from 27 per cent to 60 per cent between 1950 and 2002, and the population is projected to stabilise near 105 million by 2050.

Iran became the first West Asian country to stage the continental games, having founded its National Olympic Committee in 1947. The event showcased the Pahlavi state's international standing.

With daily demonstrations destabilising the country, the Shah imposed martial law, but hundreds of thousands persisted. The shooting of crowds became a defining atrocity that hardened opposition to the monarchy.

Protests drew in more than 10 per cent of the population, an exceptionally high share for a revolution, uniting secular and leftist groups behind Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi fled the country in January and Khomeini returned from exile in February to lead the new government, confirmed by referendum in April; after violence between Khomeini's supporters and the interim government, Prime Minister Shapour Bakhtiar fled the country in disguise. Militants seized the US embassy in Tehran that November, holding 52 hostages for 444 days.

With the revolution Iran withdrew recognition of Israel and has since maintained diplomatic relations with 165 countries but neither Israel nor the United States. The rupture defined decades of proxy conflict.

The referendum of 31 March mandated an assembly to draft a theocratic constitution, and Khomeini became Supreme Leader in December 1979. The modernising capitalist economy was replaced by populist Islamic policies: industries were nationalised, laws and schools Islamized and Western influence restricted.

Fearing that the Shah's admission to the US for cancer treatment presaged a coup to restore him, students occupied the US embassy in Tehran on 4 November, calling it a den of spies. Fifty-two hostages were held for 444 days until mid-January 1981, and the United States cut off diplomatic relations with Iran in April 1980, permanently rupturing relations with Washington.

Mojtaba, the son of Ali Khamenei, had assumed the position in March through an interim arrangement following his father's death. His installation marked the first time the office had passed to a son of a previous supreme leader.

President Trump and Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian signed the agreement on 17 June at the Palace of Versailles, mediated by Pakistan, ending months of direct conflict and providing for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. Sporadic strikes and counter-strikes continued for weeks afterwards despite the agreement.

The 27 May release followed sustained diplomatic engagement by India. Iran had detained numerous foreign-flagged vessels and crews in the Strait of Hormuz over the preceding year amid tensions with the United States and its allies.

On 28 February 2026 the two allies struck multiple targets across Iran, and Israeli airstrikes aimed at senior officials killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, whose death the government confirmed on 1 March. On 8 March the 88-person Assembly of Experts announced that his son Mojtaba Khamenei had been elected Supreme Leader by unanimous vote.

The 7 February sentence, on charges of collusion and propaganda, followed her rearrest in December 2025 while attending a memorial service. Rights groups condemned the sentence as part of a broader crackdown on dissent.

The 11 February apology followed months of demonstrations beginning in late 2025 and a violent response that included internet blackouts and mass arrests. Four reformist politicians were arrested days earlier on charges of working with Israel and the United States.

The 28 February strikes targeted leadership and nuclear-linked sites with the stated aim of regime change; Iran's government confirmed Khamenei's death the next day. Iran retaliated with missile strikes across the Gulf region, and strikes on a school in Minab and a sports hall in Lamerd caused mass casualties among children; estimates of the overall death toll from the war vary widely and remain contested.

The 29 January measures responded to the crackdown on protests and to Iranian support for Russia's war in Ukraine. The United States, United Kingdom and Ukraine imposed parallel sanctions on Iranian security officials around the same time, and Iran designated European militaries as terrorist groups in response.

Mass demonstrations across Iranian cities, sparked by the economic crisis and the aftermath of the war, called for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic. Amid an internet blackout, Iran International estimated 12,000 protesters killed by 13 January 2026, and by 17 January estimates reached at least 16,500 dead and about 330,000 injured.

The 13 December changes were the first increase in subsidised fuel prices since 2019, when similar measures triggered nationwide unrest. The reform came amid mounting budgetary pressure from sanctions and currency depreciation.

The 26 September deal covered a civilian nuclear facility in Hormozgan province on the Gulf coast. It extended long-standing nuclear cooperation between the two countries, distinct from Iran's disputed uranium enrichment programme.

The sanctions took effect on 28 September after European powers triggered the mechanism over Iran's nuclear programme. The European Union reinstated its own parallel sanctions the following day.

After the IAEA found Iran non-compliant with its nuclear obligations and Iran announced a new enrichment facility, Israel struck across Iran on 13 June, hitting nuclear facilities and killing senior military leaders. Iran retaliated with missiles, the United States bombed Iranian nuclear sites on 22 June, Iran attacked US bases in Qatar, and a ceasefire was agreed on 24 June at American insistence.

Authorities moved to expel an estimated four million Afghan migrants and refugees living in the country. The order marked one of the largest forced population movements in the region.

The collapse of a close ally removed a key pillar of Iran's regional network. Combined with the weakening of Iran's proxies since 2023, it left the government weakened and isolated.

Raisi was killed in May 2024, prompting an early presidential election won by the reformist former health minister. In October Iran fired 180 ballistic missiles at Israel in retaliation for the assassinations of Ismail Haniyeh, Hassan Nasrallah and Abbas Nilforoushan, and Israel struck Iranian military sites.

After an Israeli airstrike on Iran's consulate in Damascus killed an IRGC commander, Iran retaliated with drones, cruise and ballistic missiles, nine of which struck Israel. It was the largest drone strike in history and the first time since 1991 that Israel had been directly attacked by a state.

The domestically developed remote-sensing satellite was launched from Russia, following Russia's launch of Iran's Khayyam satellite from Kazakhstan in August 2022. The launches reflected deepening scientific and military cooperation, alongside the IRIAF's November 2023 arrangements to acquire Su-35 jets, Mi-28 helicopters and air defence systems.

Iran built 1.188 million cars in 2023, 12 per cent growth on the previous year, ranking ahead of the UK, Italy and Russia. Industrial capability had already leapt from 69th to 28th in industrial production growth between 2008 and 2009, with over $20 billion of technical and engineering services exported over 2001–2011.

Tourism grew 43 per cent in 2023 to six million foreign visitors, after nearly nine million in 2019 had made Iran the world's third fastest-growing destination before the pandemic. The sector reached 5 per cent of the economy in 2022, with $32 billion of investment projected by 2026.

Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman, died in police custody on 16 September 2022 after her arrest by the Guidance Patrol morality police for allegedly violating hijab rules. The 'Woman, Life, Freedom' protests that followed swept the country and were the most sustained challenge to the Islamic Republic in years; security forces killed several hundred people in the crackdown, according to human rights groups. Earlier waves in 2017–18 and in November 2019, triggered by fuel price rises of up to 300 per cent, had also spread nationwide.

The hardliner, defeated in 2017, succeeded Rouhani in 2021 and intensified uranium enrichment while hindering international inspections. His government joined the SCO and BRICS, backed the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, signed a 25-year cooperation agreement with China and restored relations with Saudi Arabia.

The killing of Iran's second-most powerful figure sharply heightened tensions, and Iran retaliated against US airbases in Iraq in the largest ballistic missile attack ever on Americans, leaving 110 with brain injuries. Days later, on 8 January, the IRGC shot down Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752, killing all 176 aboard and triggering nationwide protests before the government admitted responsibility.

The Trump administration's move formally criminalised support for the IRGC, a body that accounted for 34 per cent of Iran's military spending in 2021. It intensified the pressure campaign following the withdrawal from the nuclear deal.

The find added substantially to reserves underpinning an industry that produced 4 per cent of world crude by 2023, generating $36 billion in export revenue and most of Iran's foreign currency. In April 2024 the NIOC announced ten giant shale oil deposits totalling 2.6 billion barrels.

President Trump announced the US withdrawal from the nuclear deal in May, calling the agreement flawed, and reinstated sweeping sanctions on Iran's economy, nullifying the deal's economic provisions. Iran gradually reduced its own compliance, abandoning the deal's limits by 2020 and reaching nuclear threshold status; by November 2023 it held uranium enriched to 60 per cent.

The agreement, signed in Vienna in July, restricted Iran's nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief. It followed more than a decade of international dispute over Iran's uranium enrichment activities.

The award, the highest prize in mathematics, marked international recognition of Iranian mathematical scholarship. It followed earlier Iranian scientific firsts such as Ali Javan's co-invention of the gas laser in 1960.

The five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany agreed to provide incremental relief from international pressure in return for positive steps towards transparency of Iran's nuclear programme. The Security Council had passed numerous resolutions calling on Iran to suspend uranium enrichment and reprocessing and comply with its IAEA obligations.

Iranians elected Hassan Rouhani, a moderate conservative cleric and long-time senior regime figure, who promised reforms of society and of Iran's foreign policy. He encouraged personal freedom, access to information and improved women's rights, sought better diplomatic relations by exchanging conciliatory letters with foreign leaders, and presided over the nuclear negotiations.

Deteriorating economic conditions, due primarily to government mismanagement and international sanctions, prompted at least two major protests in July and October 2012, though internal security remained stable. President Ahmadi-Nejad's independent streak meanwhile angered establishment figures including the Supreme Leader, alienating his supporters in his final year.

The traditional weaving skills of Fars province and Kashan were recognised internationally. The listing reinforced Iran's cultural standing, as did the 2019 registration of the Vank Cathedral in Isfahan as a World Heritage Site.

The robot showcased indigenous robotics and control engineering capability. It formed part of a broader state push in science and technology during the period.

The scheme was launched in autumn 2010 alongside an economic reform plan to phase out subsidies and replace them with targeted social assistance. Budget deficits nonetheless remained chronic, with energy subsidies alone totalling $100 billion in 2022.

Demonstrators disputed the declared landslide re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, alleging fraud. Security forces suppressed the protests over the following months, with dozens killed and thousands detained.

Facebook has been blocked since 2009 and further platforms were blocked from January 2021. Arrests of journalists critical of the government have increased since 2022 according to Reporters Without Borders.

Launched on the thirtieth anniversary of the revolution using the Safir expendable rocket, Omid made Iran an orbital-launch-capable nation. The successor Simorgh launcher flew in 2016, and in January 2024 the Qaem 100 rocket placed the Soraya satellite in Iran's highest orbit yet at 750 km.

The successful cloning in Tehran demonstrated advanced biotechnology capability. It came amid a period in which Iran increased its research publication output nearly tenfold between 1996 and 2004, ranking first globally in output growth.

The conservative populist pursued nuclearisation and hostility towards Israel, Saudi Arabia, the UK and the US. He was the first president summoned by parliament to answer questions on his presidency, and the disputed 2006 election results produced protests.

The agency underpinned Iran's emergence as an orbital-launch-capable nation and its founding membership of the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. It gave the state an indigenous institutional base for space activity.

The plants were followed by the country's first solar thermal facility in 2009, part of a target of 53 GW of installed capacity supported by gas-fired, hydro and nuclear generation. Iran's first nuclear power plant went online in 2011, though the country still suffers an energy crisis with frequent outages as of 2024.

Most Iranian earthquakes are shallow-focus and highly destructive, and Bam was among the most devastating. Seismic risk remains a structural hazard for Iranian cities.

Starting with nationwide municipal elections in 2003 and continuing through Majles elections in 2004, conservatives regained Iran's elected institutions, culminating in the August 2005 inauguration of hardliner Mahmud Ahmadi-Nejad as president.

The reformer's election as president in 1997, followed by a reformist Majles in 2000, initiated a movement responding to popular dissatisfaction. It floundered as conservative politicians, backed by the Supreme Leader, unelected bodies such as the Council of Guardians and the security services, reversed and blocked reforms while increasing repression.

Rafsanjani favoured free markets, privatisation of state industries and moderation abroad without breaking from revolutionary ideology. Government incentives during the 1990s also improved agricultural productivity, advancing the goal of national self-sufficiency in food.

After Khomeini's death, Ali Khamenei, then president, became supreme leader in June, chosen despite lacking the senior religious rank traditionally expected of the role; a 25-man Constitutional Reform Council appointed by Khomeini on his deathbed also revised the constitution, ratified in the 1989 constitutional referendum that created the national security council. Lacking Khomeini's charisma and clerical standing, Khamenei built a support network within the armed forces and the economically powerful religious foundations, and led Iran for 37 years until his death in 2026.

For its activities in Lebanon and elsewhere, Iran remains subject to US, UN and EU economic sanctions and export controls because of its continued involvement in terrorism and concerns over possible military dimensions of its nuclear programme.

Iran cultivated a wide network of state and non-state actors, starting with Hezbollah, and later exploited instability in Iraq from 2003 and Yemen from 2014. Hezbollah's symbolic victory in the 2006 Israel–Hezbollah War elevated Iranian influence in the Levant and across the Muslim world.

Exploiting revolutionary disorder and the weakness of Iran's military, Saddam Hussein's forces attacked Khuzestan on 22 September 1980 and made early advances before being pushed back into Iraq by 1982. The war ground on until Khomeini accepted a UN-mediated truce in 1988, ending in stalemate; death estimates range from roughly 500,000 to an estimated one million on both sides combined, and Iraq made extensive use of chemical weapons against Iranians.

Opposition to Islamic values was systematically purged from institutions, including through the 1981–1982 Iran massacres. A UN Special Rapporteur investigation in 2024 concluded that Iran had committed genocide against political and religious minorities in these massacres and the 1988 mass executions.