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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Iran
Index
Tehran, the capital, is the country's largest city and the
second most populous city in the Middle East after Cairo. Tehran is
a comparatively young city, the origins of which date back about
700 years. The old part of the city is a few kilometers to the
northwest of ancient Rey, an important city that was destroyed by
the Mongol invasions of the thirteenth century. Tehran was founded
by refugees from Rey, but remained an insignificant small town
until the end of the eighteenth century, when the founder of the
Qajar dynasty chose it to be his capital
(see The Qajars, 1795-1925
, ch. 1). Tehran has been the capital of the country ever
since.
The centralization of the government and the expansion of the
bureaucracy under the Pahlavis, the last royal dynasty, were major
factors in Tehran's rapid growth after 1925. The city's population
doubled between 1926 and 1940 and tripled between 1940 and 1956,
when it reached more than 1.5 million. Tehran's population
continued to grow rapidly, exceeding 2.7 million by 1966. Its
population in the 1986 census was slightly over 6 million. This
figure represented a 35 percent increase over the 1976 census of
slightly under 4.5 million.
In 1986 Iran had one other city, Mashhad, with a population
over 1 million. Mashhad's population of more than 1.4 million
represented an increase of 110 percent since 1976. Much of its
growth was attributed to the large number of Afghan refugees,
approximately 450,000, who were living in the city. The historical
origins of Mashhad are similar to those of Tehran inasmuch as the
city essentially developed after the centuries- old city of Tus,
near modern Mashhad, was destroyed by the Mongols. Mashhad has
served as the principal commercial center of Khorasan since the
nineteenth century, although its major growth has occurred only
since the mid-1950s. It also has become an important manufacturing
center and has numerous carpet, textile, and food-processing
factories.
Iran's other major cities include Esfahan, Tabriz, and Shiraz,
all of which had populations of 800,000 or more in 1986. Like
Mashhad, these cities have experienced relatively rapid growth
since the mid-1950s. All three of these cities are important
manufacturing centers, especially Esfahan, where many of Iran's
heavy industries are concentrated. Smaller cities (populations of
100,000 to 500,000) such as Ahvaz, Bakhtaran (before the Revolution
Kermanshah), Hamadan, Karaj, Kerman, Qazvin, Qom, Rasht, and
Urumiyeh (or Urmia, formerly known as Rezaiyeh) also have grown
considerably since 1956 (see
table 2, Appendix). A total of 30
cities, more than double the number in the 1966 census, had
populations exceeding 100,000 in 1986.
Data as of December 1987
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