Demography of Iran

From Includipedia, the inclusionist encyclopedia

The statistics in this article come from the CIA World Factbook, 2006 edition.

Iran's population had a population of 70,049,262 at the time of the 2006 census.^[1]^[2], with nearly one quarter of its people being 15 years of age or younger.^[3] Iran is also ethnically and linguistically diverse, with some cities, such as Tehran, bringing various ethnic groups together.

1 Linguistic Groups
2 Population Density & Most populous cities
3 Religious affiliation
4 Major Ethnic Groups
5 Miscellaneous statistics
6 See also
7 External links
8 Notes

[edit] Linguistic Groups

Image:Iran peoples.jpg

Ethnolinguistic groups in Iran

Approximately 70% of Iran's peoples speak Iranian languages,^[4] including Persians, Kurds, Gilakis, Mazandaranis, Pashtuns, Lurs, and Baluchis. Turkic speakers, such as the Azeri, Turkmen, and the Qashqai peoples, comprise substantial minorities. The remainder are primarily Semitics such as Arabs and Assyrians or other Indo-Europeans such as Armenians. There are also small communities of Brahui in southeastern Iran. The Georgian language is spoken only by those Iranian Georgians that live in Fereydan and Fereydunshahr.^{[citation needed]} All other communities of Iranian Georgians in Iran have already lost their language.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Population Density & Most populous cities

Image:IranProvPopDen.PNG

Population density by province in Iran: The northwest half of the country is more densely populated

The following is a list of the five most populous cities in the country.

Rank	City (Province)	2007 population
1.	Tehran (Tehran Province)	14,000,000 (conurbanation and commuter towns included)
Mashhad and Esfahan's population is disputed over their ranking of being 2nd or 3rd.
2.	Mashad (Razavi Khorasan)	2,400,000 (this does include suburban population)
3.	Isfahan (Isfahan Province)	A poulation of around 3,050,554 including it's suburbs and the population live witin the Esfahan conurbation (1,600,554 in the actual city it self)
4.	Shiraz (Fars Province)	1,755,955
5.	Tabriz (East Azarbaijan)	1,597,319 (city proper and main suburbs)

See also: List of cities in Iran.

[edit] Religious affiliation

Religions: Shi'a Muslim 89%, Sunni Muslim 9%, Zoroastrian, Jewish, Christian, and Bahá'í (largest minority) 2%.

Most Iranians are Muslims; around 90% belong to the Shi'a branch of Islam, the official state religion, and about 8% belong to the Sunni branch, which predominates in neighboring Muslim countries. 2% Non-Muslim minorities include Zoroastrians, Jews, Bahá'ís, Mandeans, Christians and Yarsan. The Bahá'í Faith, Iran's largest religious minority with a population around 300 000, is not officially recognized, and has been persecuted during its existence in Iran. Since the 1979 revolution the persecution of Bahá'ís has intensified with executions, the denial of civil rights and liberties, and the denial of access to higher education and employment.^[5]^[6]

Non-Muslim minorities have been shrinking in the past few decades as they emirgrate from Iran.^{[citation needed]} About 11,000 to 40,000 Jews remain in Iran today, the largest Jewish community in the Middle East outside Israel, down from about 100,000 before the Islamic Revolution. Zoroastrian, and Christian communities are seeing similar contraction.^{[citation needed]}

Today, there are about 8,000 Assyrian Christians in Iran, who belong to the Chaldean Catholic Church.^{[citation needed]}

See also: Roman Catholicism in Iran

[edit] Major Ethnic Groups

Ethnic groups: Persians 53% (including Lurs), Azeris 24%, Gilaki-Mazandarani 8%, Kurds 7%, Arabs 3%, Baloch 2%, Turkmen 2%, other 1% (based on CIA data)

[edit] Miscellaneous statistics

Nationality:
noun: Iranian(s) -- adjective: Iranian

Population: 65,397,521 (July 2007 est.)

Image:DemoIR.JPG

Demography of Iran (2002).

Image:Persian Diaspora.png

Iranian diaspora population map.
In thousands of people: Template:Legend Template:Legend Template:Legend Template:Legend Template:Legend Template:Legend Template:Legend Template:LegendNote: For India, without the Parsis, the figure would be 10 to 20 thousand people.

Iranian citizens abroad: Over 4 million people (est.) mostly in North America, Western Europe and Australia

[1]
. They are approx. 10 million when including their children born abroad (see diaspora).

There are some 150-200 million people around the world who have Persian ancestry.

Languages: Persian and Persian dialects 58%, Turkic languages 26%, Kurdish 9%, Balochi 1%, Arabic 1%, other 2%

Literacy:
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 80%
male: 86%
female: 73.0% (2003 est.)

Age structure:
0-14 years: 23.2% (male 7,783,794; female 7,385,721)
15-64 years: 71.4% (male 23,636,883; female 23,088,934)
65 years and over: 5.4% (male 1,701,727; female 1,800,462) (2007 est.) Median age:
total: 25.8 years
male: 25.6 years
female: 26 years (2007 est.) Population growth rate: 0.663% (2007 est.) Birth rate: 16.57 births/1,000 population (2007 est.) Death rate: 5.65 deaths/1,000 population (2007 est.) Net migration rate: -4.29 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2007 est.) Sex ratio:
at birth: 1.05 male(s)/female
under 15 years: 1.054 male(s)/female
15-64 years: 1.024 male(s)/female
65 years and over: 0.945 male(s)/female
total population: 1.026 male(s)/female (2007 est.) Infant mortality rate: 38.12 deaths/1,000 live births (2007 est.) Life expectancy at birth:
total population: 70.56 years
male: 69.12 years
female: 72.07 years (2007 est.) Total fertility rate: 1.71 children born/woman (2007 est.)