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Iran
Major Cities
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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