Both "Persia" and "Iran" are used interchangeably in cultural contexts; however, "Iran" is the name used officially in political contexts.
The 18th largest country in the world in terms of area at 1,648,195 km2 (636,372 sq mi), Iran has a population of around 79 million.
Demographics
Iran ethnoreligious distribution
Iran is a diverse country consisting of people of many religions and ethnic backgrounds cemented by the Persian culture. The majority of the population speaks the Persian language, which is also the official language of the country, as well as other Iranian languages or dialects. Turkic languages and dialects, most importantly Azeri language, are spoken in different areas in Iran. Additionally, Arabic is spoken in the southwestern parts of the country.
The exact ethnic breakdown of Iran is unknown as there are no official numbers, however some organizations have made estimates. The World Factbook released the estimate: Persians (61%), Azerbaijanis (16%), Kurds (10%), Lurs (6%), Arabs (2%), Balochs (2%), Turkmens and Turkic tribes (2%), Laks, Qashqai, Armenians, Persian Jews, Georgians, Assyrians, Circassians, Tats, Mandaeans, Gypsies, Brahuis, Kazakhs and others (1%). However according to them Persian is spoken as first language by 53%, while Azeri and other Turkic dialects is spoken by 18%, Kurdish by 10%, Gilaki and Mazandarani by 7%, Luri by 6%, Balochi by 2%, Arabic by 2% and that some 2% have other languages as first language.
The Library of Congress estimates are as following: Persians (65%), Azerbaijanis (16%), Kurds (7%), Lurs (6%), Arabs (2%), Baluchi (2%), Turkmens (1%), Turkic tribal groups such as the Qashqai (1%), and non-Iranian, non-Turkic groups such as Armenians, Assyrians, and Georgians (less than 1%). According to them Persian is spoken as a mother tongue by at least 65% of the population and as a second language by a large proportion of the remaining 35%.
Some seem to use Iranian and Persian almost synonymously, they include other dialects in Iran as Persian whereas others don't seem to ..
Ethnicity
While a categorization of a "Persian" ethnic group persists in the West, Persians have generally been a pan-national group often comprising regional people who often refer to themselves as 'Persians' and have also often used the term "Iranian" (in the ethnic-cultural sense). As a pan-national group, defining Persians as an ethnic group, at least in terms used in the West, is not inclusive since the ethnonym "Persian" includes several Iranian people including the speakers of Modern Persian. Some scholars, classify the speakers of Persian language as a single ethnic unit (the ‘Persians’) and exclude those Iranians who speak dialects of Persian, or other Iranian dialects closely related to Persian; however this approach to ethnicity in Iran is erroneous, since the designation Iranian (Irani) as an ethnic term has been used by all these ethnic group in Iran, including the "Persians" irrespective of their origin, language and religion.
Sub-groups
Persians can be found in Iran, Georgia, Turkey, Armenia, the Caucasus, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Northern Pakistan. Like the Persians of Iran (Western Persians), the Tajiks (Eastern Persians) are descendants of various Iranian peoples, including Persians from Iran, as well as numerous invaders. Tajiks and Farsiwan have a particular affinity with Persians in neighboring Khorasan due to historical interaction some stemming from the Islamic period. Scholars also include Iranian language speakers such as Talysh, Gilak, Lurs, Mazandaranis and speakers of Central Iranian languages in Iran under the term Persian. Specifically, the Lurs speak an Archaic Persian language.
Other smaller groups include the Qizilbash of Afghanistan and Pakistan who are related to the Farsiwan and Azerbaijanis. In the Caucasus, the Tats are concentrated in Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Russian Dagestan and their origins are traced to Sassanid merchants who settled in the region. Parsis, a Zoroastrian sect of western India centered around Gujarat and Mumbai and also found in southern Pakistan, while the Parsees, are also largely descended from Persian Zoroastrians. The Iranis, another small community in western South Asia, are descended from more recent Persian Zoroastrian immigrants. In addition, the Hazara and Aimaq of Afghanistan are ethnic groups of partial Persianized Mongol and Turkic origin. .. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_people#Modern_era
How many live outside Iran? 4+ million according to ..
The Persian Diaspora
Since the Iranian Revolution of 1979, millions of Persian Speaking peoples have migrated to other parts of the Middle East, to the US, Europe, and other areas of the world. .. http://www.farsinet.com/pwo/diaspora.html
======== .. Surely the mullahs et al are Persian .. but .. ??? .. not sure ..
Iran’s Top 20
May 22, 2009 8:00 PM EDT
Power and public discourse in the Islamic Republic are dominated by fewer than two dozen heavyweights, ranging from ayatollahs to entertainers (and one TV network).
1. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei - Supreme Leader Watch his actions, not his words. Having made his name as a pragmatist before taking over as Iran's top holy man, he tries to reconcile the two roles: he tends to take the more popular side in every debate, while spouting radical rhetoric.
2. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - President Favored to win another four-year term as Iran’s second-most-powerful man. The Supreme Leader can always overrule him but until recently has tried to avoid direct confrontation. Khamenei is said to have particularly enjoyed his performance during nuclear negotiations.
3. Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani - Eminence Grise As head of the Expediency Council the ex-president is in charge of settling disputes between Iran's Parliament and the Council of Guardians. A Khomeini confidant, he knows all the skeletons in the regime's closet and may play a quiet role in U.S.-Iran talks.
4. Mohammad Khatami - Ex-President After 18 years of conservative rule, Iranians were stunned by the reformist's 1997 upset victory: their votes counted! Although he proved unable to keep his lofty promises, many young people still see him as the best hope for change. They took it hard when he quit this year's race.
5. Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati - Oversight Chief The Council of Guardians of the Islamic Revolution is a panel of six clerics and six lawyers that oversees all legislative bills and decides who can run in parliamentary and presidential elections. Its 83-year-old chief is an enthusiastic Ahmadinejad supporter.
6. Ali Larijani - Majlis Speaker The national legislature's pragmatic leader is the well-heeled son of an influential cleric, as well as Iran's former nuclear negotiator. He remains close to Khamenei. Ahmadinejad defeated Larijani in the 2005 presidential race, and their disputes since then have become a public spectacle.
7. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari - Revolutionary Guards Commander Specialized in guerrilla missions and unconventional warfare during the war with Iraq. He's said to owe his current post to his popularity with young troops and his up-to-date plans for defense against possible threats from Israel and America.
8. Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf - Mayor of Tehran A former Revolutionary Guards commander and security chief, he stepped into Ahmadinejad's old job as mayor after a failed bid for the presidency in 2005. Supporters praise him for fixing the mess they say Ahmadinejad left behind, and they hope he'll do the same for Iran in 2013.
9. Ayatollah Abbas Vaez-Tabasi - Holy Estate Director Controls what is arguably the country's wealthiest single institution, the Holy Estate of Imam Reza, which owns hundreds of companies, mines and farms. Every year millions of pilgrims visit the shrine of the Shia saint, the only one buried in Iran.
10. Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi - Radical Scholar The plugged-in director of the Imam Khomeini Education & Research Institute is one of the most hardline and influential interpreters of Islamic teachings in Qum. His students are among the city's brightest and most politicized.
11. Seyyed Javad Shahrestani - Sistani's Envoy Despite 30 years of political Islam in Iran, many Shiites still see Iraq-based Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani as their religious leader, or marja ("object of emulation"). The resolutely apolitical Shahrestani is Sistani's son-in-law, as well as his representative in the Islamic Republic.
12. Saeed Mortazavi - Prosecutor General of Tehran Has been responsible for closing dozens of newspapers and sentencing journalists and activists to lengthy jail terms. Human-rights groups accuse him of harsh interrogation methods. He recently organized a group of lawyers to prosecute alleged Israeli crimes in Gaza.
13. Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi - Head of Judiciary Born in Iraq, he was a leader in the fight against Saddam's dictatorship before fleeing the country in 1979. Has made impressive progress on court reform since Khamenei named him top judge in 1999, but many judges remain beyond his jurisdiction.
14. Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi - Campaign Manager Friends with Ahmadinejad since childhood, and an architect of his political rise, Samareh has been called an Iranian Karl Rove. He recently resigned from his post as a senior presidential adviser in order to devote himself full time to Ahmadinejad's bid for reelection.
15. Mir Hossein Mousavi - Ex–Prime Minister Dark-horse presidential candidate and an enigma to just about everyone. Older Iranians remember him as prime minister and a close Khomeini ally in the 1980s, but he's spent the past 20 years painting and designing buildings. Now he's wooing young voters as a reformist.
16. Mohsen Rezaei - Khamenei Adviser The former Revolutionary Guards commander and secretary of the Expediency Council is a close and loyal adviser to the Supreme Leader. He's a devout traditionalist but more pragmatic than the current president, and is hoping to unseat him in the June 12 elections.
17. Hossein Shariatmadari - Newspaper Editor Khamenei's top man at Kayhan, the leading conservative daily. His editorials, special reports and "Hidden Half" feature (devoted to the darker side of public figures he dislikes) read like a cross between intelligence reports and an Iranian version of Fox News.
18. BBC Persian Service - Illegal TV Network The ban on satellite dishes is widely ignored: Iranians want news they can trust, not state TV. The Persian Voice of America is too pro-Washington for some. Since early this year, many have turned instead to the BBC and popular anchors like Farnaz Ghazizadeh (above).
19. Adel Ferdosipour - Sportscaster Easily the country's most popular TV host. When angry sports officials tried to get him fired recently for criticizing them on his weekly show (Iranian soccer, a national passion, is in crisis, beset by scandal and poor play), more than 3 million loyal fans sent text messages to keep him on.
20. Mehran Modiri - Social Satirist Has survived 20 years by choosing his battles. Today his television comedies rule Iran's airwaves, with audiences so big that broadcast executives don't balk at his lampoons of Iranian life. Reformist politicians crave his endorsement, but he wants to stay in business.
Note in sections of my other reply, above this one if coming from yours, (then you can see them both at the same time) .. the Balochi are seen separated from Persians, yet ..
The Baloch or Baluch (Balochi: [...] are an eastern Iranic ethnic group who mainly inhabit the Balochistan region and Sistan and Baluchestan Province in the southeast corner of the Iranian plateau in Western Asia.
The Baluch people mainly speak Baluchi, which is a branch of the Iranian languages, and more specifically of the North-western Iranian languages, that is highly influenced by that of Mesopotamia and shares similarities with Kurdish and other languages of the region. It also contains archaic features reminiscent of Old Persian and Avestan.
[...]
Historical evidence suggests that Baluch people were the ancient inhabitants of the Maka satrapy in Achaemenid empire. ..
The Achaemenid Empire ([pronunciation?]; Old Persian: Parsa, name of ruling dynasty: Haxamanišiya) (c. 550–330 BCE), sometimes known as First Persian Empire, was an empire in Southwest Asia, founded in the 6th century BCE by Cyrus the Great who overthrew the Median confederation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achaemenid_empire
I'm not 100%, but this division/separation by some may be what this comment from my other reply is about ..
"Some scholars, classify the speakers of Persian language as a single ethnic unit (the ‘Persians’) and exclude those Iranians who speak dialects of Persian, or other Iranian dialects closely related to Persian; however this approach to ethnicity in Iran is erroneous, since the designation Iranian (Irani) as an ethnic term has been used by all these ethnic group in Iran, including the "Persians" irrespective of their origin, language and religion." .. http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=74146871
In here
it says .. 'dari (spoken by ancient Persians) is Persian .. 50% of Afghans speak it .. tajaks are Persian .. Hazaras are Persian .. Farsiwans are Persians .. Persians are an ethnic group separate from Greeks, Turks and Arabs' .. about 550BC Persians replaced Medes as the dominant ethnic group in Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia (from the Greek: [...] "[land] between rivers"; Arabic: [...]; Syriac: "land of rivers") is a toponym for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran. .. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesopotamia
now it says .. Farsi/Parsi is 20% Arabic and the rest Persian .. also "Tajik culture was cemented in Afghanistan by the Saminids, an east Persian empire 800 - 1000"
also .. '1/3 of Afghans are Tajiks and Dari is the language of education and culture in Afghanistan ..
LOL .. hope all this is more helpful than confusing .. i think i understand who is a Persian a bit more now .. :)
OT .. a movie just started and ouch the big news story in the movie just now is of a gang attack in downtown Baltimore .. missed the name of the gang who claimed responsibility for the one in the movie ..
in that one you can see Dari is seen as Persian and Baloch as separate ..
========
The first two lines are taken from the google search list
Officially, Farsi is The Persian of Iran and Dari is the Persian spoken in Afghanistan. Before Perusing any further, it is important to explain the term Iran. Ariyana ...
Pahlawi/Farsi/Dari
Roughly speaking, Pahlawi is the language of the Sassanids and the official Zoroastrian Priesthood language. It emerged as the language of the Persians after the defeat of the Parthians by Cyrus in mid sixth century B.C. Pahlawi is also refereed to as Middle Persian. The term "middle" Persian suggests the existence of an old Persian and a new Persian. The old Persian being the language of the Achamenians which was overshadowed by Greek after the conquests of Alexander the Great. The Pahlawi emerged as the spoken language of the Persian courts of the Sassanids. The conquest of Moslems again broke the continues chain of Persian language and Arabic (for two hundred years, i.e. 6-8 century A.D.) became the official language . The Persians however did not forget their own language and little by little the Middle Persian was being shaped into new Persian but with the addition of a considerable amount of Arabic and Parthian words in Arabic script. This new style was the mother of both Farsi and Dari. Officially, Farsi is The Persian of Iran and Dari is the Persian spoken in Afghanistan.
Before Perusing any further, it is important to explain the term Iran. Ariyana of the Avesta [the book of Zoroaster] or Arya of Sanskrit [ancient Aryan/Indian language] is the land of the Aryans, a people of Central Asian Steppes who came down from beyond the Oxus river in about 2000 B.C. Afghans, Persians and Kurd are among the Aryan tribes.
Most authors do not really distinguish between Iran, Aryan, and Persian. They use these terms to mean either race, language, culture or nationality. Iran is taken from Aryan which means the land of the Aryans, which is not an accurate term since most of Central and South Central Asia is Aryan. Persian is another confusing term which not only implies to the modern Iranian (nation) people but also to those who speak Persian (New Persian i.e. Farsi, Dari etc.). It is impossible to speak of the language and the land without using this western terminology which blindly throws everyone into incorrect or vague categories. I, however, will try to clarify the terms when using them.
The Old, Middle and New Persian are and represent the same language at three stages of its history. Persian was originated in Persa (Persis of Greeks and Fars of Arabs) and is differentiated by dialectical features, still easily recognizable from the dialects prevailing South, Centarl and South Western Asia. The new Persian remains close to the Middle Persian in many respects. However, New Persian has taken many words from Arabic and Parthian, as opposed to Middle Persian which was influenced, to a lesser degree, by Aramiac. The grammatical structure has also undergone minor changes, mainly in relations to verbal morphology and syntax. For example, in new Persian as in German, verbs usually end a sentence.
Ibn al-Muqaffa, in his Fihrist lists the five languages of Persia at the end of the Sassanid rule. Pahlawi-the language of Fahla country (ancient Media); Dari-The language of the capital, Ctesiphon; Parsi-language of the Mobads and scholars; Suryani-spoken in Sawan, and finally Khuzi of Khuzistan. The last two are not Aryan but Semitic. Parsi was the official language of the state and the Zoroastrian religion, which is said to be the vehicle of literature later known as Pahlawi. Of Pahlawi, Ibn al-Muqaffa knew nothing of, thus he named Middle Persian Parsi, and used the term Pahlawi to describe the dialect of Media. As for Dari, it was the usual spoken language not only in the capital but most likely of a large part of the empire also.
Dari is derived from dar or darbari, meaning court language. In everyday conversation Dari was used and Parsi was the written and scholarly language. At the beginning these were little difference between Parsi and Dari. However, over the Years, Dari has evolved into a dialect of Middle Persian (Parsi), this distinction was realized and noted by the Sassanids towards the end of their rule. Dari, as a spoken language branched to different dialects, the most important of which was Pahlawi, the language of Parthia which had preserved the oral literature of the poetic tradition of Parthia.
Under the Sassanids prestige, Dari spread into the east and Transoxiana regions of the empire suppressing local tongs. By the 9th century the Dari of Khurasan was the dominant speaking language of the Sassanian empire. In the Middle of the 8th century Abu Muslim's Arab armies spoke Dari. And it is this language which kept a sense of unity among the "Arabized" Persians and thus emerged as a national identity through literature.
On the other hand, since Parsi (Middle Persian) was the official language, most of the government officials used it to keep records. With the advent of Islam Arabic slowly replaced Parsi as official language. The spoken language of Dari however remained intact. It was particularly strong in rural places especially among the dihqans who held on to it ever harder. The Shu'ubiyya controversy is an example of Persian (Lang.) nationalism. It is known that pre-Islamic Persia had some brilliant poetry, but the reason so little of it has survived as M. Boyce argues, is because most of the poetry was oral. When Arabic became the scholarly language, Dari, to a certain extent, was forgotten for a while. Although there are traces that indicate Arabic and Dari poetry flourishing side by side.
As mentioned above, Paris as an official language was over shadowed by Arabic with the coming of the Moslems. Dari being an everyday language stored the folklore of the Persians (lang.) Thus, in order to revive the Persian literature one had to find a widely used Persian language. Dari presented the perfect tool for this task. However, Dari was a commoner language at the time, therefore, measures were taken to standardize and formalize Dari in order for it to be used in Royal courts. The earliest Dari writing goes back to 752 in letter form. However by the 10th century a tremendous amount of literature was written and translated into Dari.
The first attempts to revive Persian was in poetic form. Among the first poets according to Tarikh-i Sistan, were Mohammad b. Wasif [Vasif], and Hanzala of Badghis. The lubabu's-albab of Mohammad Awfi claims one Abbas of Merw as the first poet, who composed a poem in honor of Khalifa al-Ma'mun on the occasion of his entry into that city [Marw] in 809 A.D. Ibn Wasif a secretary of Ya'qub b. al-Laith of the Saffarid dynasty, who praised the sultan, on his recent victory in Herat and Pushang in Arabic verses. Not understanding his secretary of chancery, Yaqub asked: "Why must something be recited that I can't understand?" Thus Mhd b. Wasif, to please the sultan began writing in Dari.
It is said that Dari poetry borrowed its verse-from Arabic literature. Hanzala and Ibn Vasif were the leading men, in local Persian courts, who led the way for a patriotic literary revival. Much credit also goes to dynasties of Tahirids, Saffarids, Samanids, and Ghaznavids and patrons such as bin lays of Saffar, Nasr II of Saman and Sultan Mahmud and Mas'ud of Ghazna who in their courts, gathered many poets and were patron of a magnificent yet lost art.
The authors of all the works I've read, misuse the terms Iranian, Aryan, Persian, Pahlawi and Parsi. It is in this shuffle that the right credit does not go to those who deserve it. Since Persia changed its name to Iran it has taken with it all the credit ever due to an Aryan. The Western world knows Persians through Greek records and consider Modern Iranians as the Persians which leaves both Afghanistan and Tajikistan, especially Afghanistan out of the picture.
Market Data 
Markets 
AI
