PERSIA (Persian Iran), an extensive country of Asia, bounded on the N. by the Caspian Sea, the Transcaspian and Transcaucasian provinces of Russia; S.
mountains appear to be a confused heap of hills piled upon hills, in grand but indefinite order; while each individual hill appears a mass of gray rock reared block on block, or starting in huge bowlders abruptly from the face of the plains or plateaux. The plains, again, are vast naked steppes, destitute of trees or foliage; and it is only on the margin of water courses, or the banks of rivers, that either villages or vegetation of any abundance are found. The provinces, however, along the S. and W. margin of the Caspian are an excep tion to the rest of the country, and pre sent some of the most beautiful and fruit by Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean; E. by Russian territory, Afghanistan and Baluchistan, and W. by Asiatic Turkey. Its length obliquely from N. W. to S. E. is 1,500 miles; area, about 628,000 square miles. Pop. about 10,000,000.
Topography.—On the N. W. and S., several lofty mountain ranges—some of considerable length, others short and abrupt—intersect the land in many direc tions, the center of the country consist ing in general of a vast plain or table land. The lowest or most level portions of the country lie along the bed of the Tigris and the shore of the Persian Gulf. Persia possesses many extensive plains and barren deserts, and the interior is generally bare, bleak, and arid. The ful pictures of richness and abundance to be found in Persia. It has been com puted that barely a third of the entire kingdom is fit for cultivation; and, though husbandry is well attended to, and the advantages of copious irriga tion are thoroughly understood, so little encouragement is given by the state to agriculture that but a small part of the capable soil is tilled. The most impor tant rivers are the Aras, Murghab or Bendemir, Atrek, Sefid-Rud, and the Tigris. The lakes of most note are Uru miah, or Shalu, Bakhtegan, and Mali digla ; from these, and from minor streams and bodies of water, an elaborate system of irrigation is effected all over the cultivated grounds, while vast sub terranean aqueducts convey the water to more remote situations.
Productions and vege table productions of Persia embrace all kinds of legumes and cereals, except rye, oats, and rice; barley and wheat are the most abundant crops. Drugs of various kinds are obtained, such as senna, rhu barb, gums, opium, etc.; as also oils, cot ton, indigo, sugar, madder, dates, pista chio nuts, and tobacco; while in flowers, and the perfumes extracted from them, especially the attar of roses, no country in the world can compare with Persia for beauty, fragrance, and abundance. Silk is an important item; and planta tions of mulberry trees of great extent are very numerous. Vast flocks of sheep and goats are pastured over the country, the property and wealth of the wander ing tribes of the interior, the Eetants, a kind of Bedouins, devoting themselves to pastoral habits. The animals for which Persia is famous are camels, horses, mules, oxen, asses, and buffalos. The mineral wealth consists of silver, copper, lead, iron, antimony, salt, preci ous stones—especially turquoise—bitu men, and springs of naphtha. There are also large, undeveloped fields of coal and petroleum. One of the features of Persia is the abundance of salt in the soil, and the large number of its salt lakes; about 30 pure salinas have no out let; and one, the largest, Urumiah, is 280 miles in circumference, and, though supplied by 14 rivers, its water is so dense, bitter, and loaded with salt, that no fish can live in it. Another, called the Bakhtegan, is 42 miles long. Situ ated near the former are some remark able ponds, whose waters are petrifying. The climate of Persia embraces the rigors experienced on the mountains of the snowy N., and the heat felt on the sandy plains of Africa. Cyrus the younger told Xenophon that his father's empire was so vast that in the N. the people perished of cold, and in the S. were suffocated with heat.