Unrivaled Charms Lure Growing Number of Foreign Tourists to Iran Each Day

Summary of Iran's Culture and Geography

The Islamic Republic of Iran, is a country in Western Asia. The name "Iran", which in Persian means "Land of the Aryans", has been in native use since the Sassanid era.

More than half of Iran's international border of 4,430 km is coastline, including 740 km along the Caspian Sea in the north and 1,700 km along the Persian Gulf and Oman Sea in the south. Bandar-e-Abbas is the largest harbor in the south of Iran located on the Strait of Hormoz, the narrow passage separating the Persian Gulf and Oman Sea through which tens of oil tankers are heading for various destinations in different corners of the world everyday.

With a long-standing and proud civilization, Persian culture is among the richest in the world. Two and a half millennia of inspiring literature, thousands of poets and writers, magnificent and impressive architecture, live customs dating back to Zoroastrians over 3000 years ago, and other unique characteristics of the nation are rivaled by only a few countries.

Iranian languages form a major subgroup of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European Language family.

It is interesting to note however, that Iranian languages are not limited to Iran - they are diverse in nature and are spoken by over 70 million people across southern and south western Asia. The reason why they are called Iranian languages is that they have been spoken across the Iranian plateau for thousands of years.

The Old Persian of the Achaemenian Empire, preserved in a number of cuneiform inscriptions, was an Indo-European tongue with close affinities with Sanskrit and Avestan (the language of the Zoroastrian sacred texts). After the fall of the Achaemenians the ancient tongue developed, in the province of Pars, into Middle Persian or Pahlavi (a name derived from Parthavi - that is, Parthian). Pahlavi was used throughout the Sassanian period, though little now remains of what must once have been a considerable literature. About a hundred Pahlavi texts survive, mostly on religion and all in prose. Pahlavi collections of romances, however, provided much of the material for Ferdowsi's Shahnameh.

Another eminent feature of Persian culture is art. In fact culture and art are two closely interwoven concepts forming the soul of human civilizations. Persian exquisite carpets, subtle soulful classic music, outstanding tile work of unique blue mosques, old influential architectural style and countless brilliant literary works are famous in the world.

One more art intertwined with Persian culture, worth mentioning, is the art of cooking. Persian foods, accompanied by herbs and spices are product of the creativity, skill and patience of many generations of cooks.

Throughout Iran's long history, in spite of different devastating invasions and occupations by Arabs, Turks, Mongols, British, Russians, and others, the country has always maintained its national identity and has developed as a distinct political and cultural entity.

Since 1980, the United Nations World Tourism Organization has celebrated World Tourism Day on September 27.

The latest figures released by Iran's tourism organization showed that the number of the foreign tourists arriving in Iran has been on the increase all throughout the last few years.

Deputy Head of Iran's Cultural Heritage, Tourism, and Handicrafts Organization, Shahbaz Yazdani, said that the entry of foreign tourists in the year 1390 (March 2011-2012) rose by 37% compared to its preceding year.

This official announced that foreign tourists, visiting Iran, increased to three million people in numbers in the year 1390.

He said that cultural tourists consisted the majority of foreign tourists visiting Iran in the year 1389 (March 2010-2011), which were mainly from European countries, including Germany and France.
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