After the Iranian Revolution, the current Islamic Republic was established in 1979 by Ruhollah Khomeini, who became the country's first supreme leader. Efforts to nationalize its fossil fuel supply led to an Anglo-American coup in 1953. The early 20th century saw the Persian Constitutional Revolution. Under the reign of Nader Shah in the 18th century, Iran presided over the most powerful military in the world, though by the 19th century, a series of conflicts with the Russian Empire led to significant territorial losses. In the 16th century, the native Safavids re-established a unified Iranian state. Over the next two centuries, a series of native Iranian Muslim dynasties emerged before the Seljuk Turks and the Mongols conquered the region. Arab Muslims conquered the empire in the seventh century AD, leading to its Islamization Iran thereafter became a major center of Islamic culture and learning.

An Iranian rebellion established the Parthian Empire in the third century BC, which was succeeded in the third century AD by the Sasanian Empire. Alexander the Great conquered the empire in the fourth century BC and it was subsequently divided into several Hellenistic states.

It was first unified by the Medes in the seventh century BC and reached its territorial height in the sixth century BC, when Cyrus the Great founded the Achaemenid Empire.

Iran is home to one of the world's oldest civilizations, beginning with the formation of the Elamite kingdoms in the fourth millennium BC.

Its capital and largest city is Tehran with around 16 million people in its metropolitan area. With an estimated population of around 87 million as of 2023, Iran is the world's 17th-most populous country, and the second largest country in the Middle East. It covers an area of 1.64 million square kilometers (0.63 million square miles), making it the 17th-largest country only behind Libya. It is bordered by Iraq to the west and Turkey to the northwest, Azerbaijan, Armenia, the Caspian Sea and Turkmenistan to the north, Afghanistan to the east, Pakistan to the southeast, the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf to the south. Iran, also known as Persia and officially the Islamic Republic of Iran ( IRI), is a country in West Asia (Near Europe). You may need rendering support to display the Persian text in this article correctly.

One Commander 3.48.1 download