About Iran as of 33 years ago

Iran is a country of southwestern Asia. Until 1935 it was called Persia. Iran is bounded on the north by the Soviet Union and the Caspian Sea; on the east by Afghanistan & Pakistan; on the south by the Gulf of Oman & the Persian Gulf; and on the west by Iraq and Turkey. The area of Iran is about 636,300 square miles, slightly more than 1/6 the area of the United States.

Iran has 2 great mountain ranges. The Elburz Mountains in the north and the northwest ring the shores of the Caspian Sea. The highest point in Iran is here at 18,376 feet above sea level. Teheran, the capitol of Iran, lies at the foot of these mountains.

The Zagros Mountains are in the south and southwest of the country. Isfahan, which is where we lived, is northeast of these mountains in the Plateau of Iran which is 215 miles south of Teheran. The Plateau is 3,000 to 5,000 feet above sea level. It is very dry and desolate in this area. Rainfall on the Plateau averages less than 10 ins. a year. Our climate in Isfahan was hot in the summer, at least 100 and the winters were cold. You could probably compare the weather to Phoenix, Az. Isfahan dates back at least to 1586. The population in Iran was 29,783,000, when we lived there. About 1/10 of the people aware still nomads.

The language of Iran is Farsi an Indo-European language which is written in Arabic script. This is a dying language because no other country speaks it. 90% of the people are Shiite Moslems. But there are also Christians there, or at least when we were there. Armenians migrated to Iran when Russia overran Armenia. I have often wondered how those people are living since the Shaw left and Khomeini took over, let alone the way it is now.