IRAN, e-ran,•Asia, a general name applied to a great table-land stretching in the North from Caspian Sea, Turkestan and the foot hills of the Caucasus on, from the Indus River in the East, to the Tigris River in the West, as far South as the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean. Politically this whole vast region is divided into Afghanistan, Persia, Baluchistan and Kafiristan and it also includes some of the border lands of British India. Persia, how ever, claims for itself alone, politically and otherwise, the appellation of Iran. The popula tion forms the Iranian branch of the Aryan race. In the Pehlevi inscriptions of the famous Sassanide ruler, Shapur I (A.D. 242-72) the country is called Airan, i.e., the land of the Aryan, in distinction from Aneran, land of the ncn-Aryan; the latter since the days of Firdimi is termed Tfiran.
The extremes of climate over this wide area were just as pronounced in ancient as in modern times. As witness the modern Persian saying: Iran hefte klimat dared, i.e., Iran has seven climates. Along the Persian Gulf in the districts of Busheer and Mohammerah, it is very hot, in the Elburz range intensely' cold. Very diversified also have always been its characteristics and features. However, both in the remote past and in more recent Iran, though a rather ill-defined unit, has been of enormous influence, not only geographically and ethnologically, but in its bearing on history, ih the diffusion of the Indo-Germanic idioms. Topographically considered the immense area is surrounded on all sides by high mountain.' ranges, these aiding materially in keeping out invaders and preserving within the enclosed territory a homogeneity of language and customs. Thus, despite the numberless vicis situdes undergone by the Iranian stock during immemorial ages, all the accounts that have come down to us seem to agree in ascribing to the people of Iran a set of traditional habits and customs as well as a physical makeup which tally in the main with those still observ able in the Persians of to-day.
The earlier travelers and authors, notably Eratosthenes and Strabo, limited the appella tion of Ariana (or Iran, Eran) to its south eastern portion, excluding Persia proper, Media and Bactria. Pliny confounds in his description. Ariana with Aria, Arcia, i.e., the district of Herat. But Strabo admits that many writers gave to Ariana a more extended meaning, com prising the Persians, Medes, Bakhtrians and Sogdians, as they all spoke the same language,. with slight dialectic variations.
The whole enormous area, of which the Persia of to-day with its 628,000 square miles is but about one-third, is rather poorly watered, lacks adequate rainfall in large sections of it, and presents vast stretches of salt-impregnated, wholly arid and barren land. The great desert
domain of Iran, in fact, extends right across the high plateau, going from a northwesterly in a southeasterly direction, and dividing the fertile provinces of the whole into two groups_ This desert is continuous from the southern base of the Elburz Mountains (overlooking in the north the Caspian) to the arid ranges of • on the Persian Gulf. It is about MO miles in length, but varying greatly in width. The indigenous name for this desert is Dasht-i-Liit, and of it the saline swamps and the salt area are known as the Dasht-i-Kavir.
From the foregoing it may easily be seen that in productiveness, too, Iran varies enor mously. It is believed to be the original home of the peach, the melon, the cucumber, the cherry and the rose, the wheat plant and the poplar. In general, on its territory grow the trees, the fruits and the cereals of the temperate and of the subtropical zones. There are dis tricts, such as, for example, Masanderan and Ghilin, the neighborhood of Shiraz and Shus ter, etc., where the yield is enormous. Wherever the rainfall is abundant, such as along the shores of the Caspian and parts of the southwest, and where woods are still remaining and rivers are flowing in a permanent bed, there is also fer tility, and wherever these conditions do not subsist the contrary prevails. Some districts, like those of Busheer and Jesk in the south and around the entire shore of the Caspian Sea, have plenty of rain. Iran, however, suffers unavoidably in its prosperity from the almost total absence of large and navigable rivers.
The population of Iran—using the term in the widest sense — seems to have been much greater in antiquity than at the present time. Undoubtedly incessant warfare, deforestation and a deficient system of tilling the soil prac ticed for thousands of years and pursued down to our own days, as well as unwise administra tion and laws, are largely responsible for this.
In historical times Iran (Eran) and Fars' (Persia, Farsistan) were for long periods al most identical. This refers not merely to the exploits and religion of Iran, but also to its art, science, language and literature.
Bibliography.— Gutschmid, H. von, (Ge schichte Irans von Alexander dem Grossen (Tubingen 1888), Hiibschmann, J. H., (Iran ische Studien' (in Kuhn's (Zeitschrift fiir vergleichende Sprachforschung,' XXIV pp. 323-415, Berlin 1879); Spiegel, F., 'Eranische Altertumskunde' (3 vols., Leipzig