Iran, also known as Persia and officially as the Islamic Republic of Iran, is a country located in West Asia.
In the Western world, Persia (or one of its cognates) was historically the common name used for Iran. On the Nowruz of 1935, Reza Shah officially asked foreign delegates to use the Persian term Iran (meaning the land of Aryans in Persian), the endonym of the country, in formal correspondence.
When Reza Shah became the new king, the name was changed to Iran in an effort to signify a new beginning. Iran made its allegiance clear to the world by changing Persia's name to Iran or Arya, which means Land of the Aryans. Persia or Iran had been greatly impacted by the Soviet Union and Great Britain before 1935.
Persia, historic region of southwestern Asia associated with the area that is now modern Iran. The term Persia was used for centuries and originated from a region of southern Iran formerly known as Persis, alternatively as Pārs or Parsa, modern Fārs.
More Information ... Persia is today the country of Iran. By the 5th century B.C.E., it was the largest empire the world had ever seen, surpassing the size of their Assyrian predecessors.
In 1935 the Iranian government requested those countries which it had diplomatic relations with, to call Persia "Iran," which is the name of the country in Persian. The suggestion for the change is said to have come from the Iranian ambassador to Germany, who came under the influence of the Nazis.
Ancient Iran, historically known as Persia, was the dominant nation of western Asia for over twelve centuries, with three successive native dynasties—the Achaemenid, the Parthian, and the Sasanian—controlling an empire of unprecedented size and complexity.
In the 1930s, steps began to be taken by Reza Shah to formalise the change in name from Persia to Iran, and the request came into force in March 1935.
Persian, predominant ethnic group of Iran (formerly known as Persia). Although of diverse ancestry, the Persian people are united by their language, Persian (Farsi), which belongs to the Indo-Iranian group of the Indo-European language family.
On the day of the Persian New Year, March 21 1935, Reza Shah Pahlavi, requested foreign delegates to use the term Iran, instead of Persia, in a conscious reference to the ancient ancestry of the Iranians.
Modern Iran is comprised of a large number of different ethnic and tribal groups. People who identify as Persian account for the majority, but there are also large numbers of Azeri, Gilaki and Kurdish people, too. While all are citizens of Iran are Iranians, only some can identify their lineage in Persia.
As the region of Iran was once called Persia, 'Iranian' is often assumed to be synonymous with 'Persian'. The two can usually be used interchangeably.
By 650 BCE, the Zoroastrian faith, a monotheistic religion founded on the ideas of the philosopher Zoroaster, had become the official religion of ancient Persia. Later Judaism and then Christianity came to Persia via Mesopotamia, with both developing vibrant faith communities in Persian lands.
People: Iranian or Persian? “Iranian” and “Persian” are often used interchangeably. If you have friends from Iran, I'm sure some of them say they're “Iranian” while others say they're “Persian.” On My Persian Corner, you'll notice I always use the term “Iranian.” Why?
Neither. Turkish is Turkic, Arabic is Semitic and Persian is Indo-European. Three different language families. However, both Persian and Arabic had influence on Turkish - especially Ottoman Turkish whose vocabulary was a mixture of the two.
At its height, it encompassed the areas of modern-day Iran, Egypt, Turkey, and parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Persian Empire emerged under the leadership of Cyrus II, who conquered the neighboring Median Empire ruled by his grandfather. From then on Cyrus was called the “shah,” or king, of Persia.
One of the most common is the conflation of Middle Eastern ethnic groups. Many people continue to believe that “Persian” and “Arab” are interchangeable terms, when, in reality, they are labels for two distinct ethnicities. That is to say, Persians are not Arabs.
The ancient Persians were an Indo-Iranian people who migrated to the Iranian plateau during the end of the second millennium B.C., possibly from the Caucasus or Central Asia. Originally a pastoral people who roamed the steppes with their livestock, they were ethnically related to the Bactrians, Medes and Parthians.
The Persians, Kurds, and speakers of other Indo-European languages in Iran are descendants of the Aryan tribes that began migrating from Central Asia into what is now Iran in the 2nd millennium bce.
The glowing description of the Persians – who, he notes, think it “the most disgraceful thing in the world” to tell a lie (I. 138) - is contrasted with the Greeks without Herodotus having to even mention his countrymen.
Although the newcomers called themselves Irani (Aryans) and their new homeland Irania (now Iran), the land came to be called Persia, because Greek geographers mistakenly named it after the province Pars, or Persis, where their early kings had their capital.
Since the Ottoman–Persian Wars of the 16th and 17th centuries, Iran (known as "Persia" prior to 1935) and the Ottomans fought over Iraq (then known as Mesopotamia) and full control of the Shatt al-Arab until the signing of the Treaty of Zuhab in 1639 which established the final borders between the two countries.
Persia (roughly modern-day Iran) is among the oldest inhabited regions in the world. Archaeological sites in the country have established human habitation dating back 100,000 years to the Paleolithic Age with semi-permanent settlements (most likely for hunting parties) established before 10,000 BCE.
Iran is the oldest country in the world with its sovereignty coming back in 3200 BC. Egypt is a close second with its establishment happening in 3100 BC. The rest of the three countries in the top five are Vietnam (2879 BC), Armenia (2492 BC), and North Korea (2333 BC).
Although Persian (Farsi) is the predominant and official language of Iran, a number of languages and dialects from three language families—Indo-European, Altaic, and Afro-Asiatic—are spoken. Roughly three-fourths of Iranians speak one of the Indo-European languages.