Iran Travel Guide

From the CIA data, ethnic groups of Iranian people consist of Persians 53%, Azeris 24%, Gilaki-Mazandarani 8%, Kurds 7%, Arabs 3%, Baloch 2%, Turkmen 2% and other 1%.

Persians

Persians are the descendents of the original Elamite and Aryan races who populated the plateau from around the 3rd millennium Be. The Persians, or Farsis, were originally the tribes that came to establish the Achaemenid Empire and now make up about 50% of the population. Farsi is the main Iranian language.

Azaris

Commonly called 'Turks' in Iran, the Azaris make up about 25% of the population. They speak Azari Turkish, a dialect mixing Turkish with Farsi. They are concentrated in northwest Iran, in the Azarbayjan prov-ince. Although many have relations in the Republic of Azerbaijan over the border, the years of border control between the Iranians and USSR have weakened ties. Unlike the neighboring Turks in Turkey, the Azaris are Shiite, which keeps them well integrated with the general population, and there is little tension. A small group of Azaris in Azerbaijan are Baha'i.

Azaris are famously active in commerce, and in bazaars all over Iran their voluble voices can be heard. Older Azari men wear the traditional goat's wool hat and their music and dances have become part of the mainstream culture. Azaris are well integrated and many Azari Iranians are prominent in Farsi literature, politics and the clerical world.

Kurds

Iran has 6.8 million Kurds, 10% of the population. The Kurds can lay claim to being the oldest Iranian people in the region, descended from the Medes. Kurds also live in neighboring Syria, Iraq and Turkey. They speak their own language descended from the same root as modern Farsi. The Kurds are subdivided into several tribes and each tribe has its own distinct version of the traditional dress and dialect.

In Iran, the Kurds live in the mountainous west, particularly Kordestan, though there are settlements in Khorasan province in the east and outside Esfahan in and around Shah-e Kord. Unlike the Azaris, they have not traditionally migrated to Tehran and so their way of life is little known to other Iranians.

Kurds are mostly Sunni Muslims and have had several run-ins with the government. The worst was a bloody confrontation with Khomeini's troops after the revolution, although by and large, Iranian Kurds just want a degree of cultural and political autonomy rather than independence. Institutional discrimination keeps their province poor, with the second lowest social indicators in Iran.

Kurdish men wear the traditional dress of a short jacket and baggy trousers with a winding cummerbund. The women wear colorful and often sparkly long dresses over baggy trousers, rarely covered with a chador. At celebrations the real finery comes out and caps covered in gold coins over cascading stitched tulle scarves are usual, although each Kurdish tribe has its own variation of the traditional dress.

Kurdish music and dance is very distinctive and the light-footed Kurds love nothing more than to form a circle and perform their lively group dances.

Arabs

Arabs make up about 3% of the Iranian population and are settled mostly in Khuzestan, along the Persian Gulf coast, in the Persian Gulf islands and so are often called bandari (bandar means port). They rarely settle in Tehran or the provincial towns and so are considered exotic. Arabs in Khuzestan are mostly Shiite while those along the Persian Gulf are mainly Sunni,

Arabs speak a dialect of Arabic and are darker skinned than other Iranians. Bandari women tend to wear distinctive clothes, often with jangling ankle bracelets over flip-flops, and have tattoos on their faces and hands. They wear a unique chador with sleeves and may have their faces covered. Several fine cloths in black, one folded over to hang down from the head with another fastened above the ears, means their eyes can be uncovered, or a flick of the cloth can have them disappear completely behind this black curtain. Some women wear an owl-like mask. The men wear the abba, a long sleeveless tunic, usually in white, with sandals and perhaps an Arabic turban. Elsewhere you will see the men in dishdasha, the traditional floor-length shirt-dress, with the long headscarfknown as gutra.

They have their own music which is characterised by the ney ammbooni (a sort of bagpipe) and a strong beat, and is accompanied by a shimmying dance much like belly dancing.

Lors

These proud people constitute 2% of Iran's population and are commonly thought to be descendants of the first peoples in the region, the Kassites

and the Medes, and they speak a mixture of Arabic and Farsi. About half the Lori population is still nomadic and those settled live in the western province of Lorestan. They were almost independent' under their own viceroys until Reza Shah brought them under the control of the central government and deported some to Khorasan and Zanjan provinces, where pockets of Lors still exist.

They speak Lori, which is their own language, or Avesta, a dialect of Old Persian. They are renowned for their horsemanship, sheep farming, metalwork and carpet weaving. They make a sort of gabbeh, which has tufts on both sides and is used as a blanket. As with the Kurds and the Bakhtiyari, Lor women have traditionally had more freedom than other Iranian women. Also like the Kurds, their refusal to integrate fully has kept their province of Lorestan poor and underdeveloped.

Turkmen

Making up 2% of the population, Iranian Turkmen are descended from the nomadic Turkic tribes that once ruled Iran. They live in the northeast of the country. They speak their own Turkic language and have very distinctive looks, being tall with slightly Mongolian features. The Turkmen women wear heavy, full-length dresses in bright colours over trousers and shawls with floral designs while some men still sport large sheepskin hats called telpek, knee-length cotton jackets and baggy trousers tucked into boots.

They tend to stay on their own plains and excel in horsemanship, being famous for breeding and racing horses, as well as sheep farming. They are Sunni Muslims and have a liking for Sufism.

Baluchis

The population of the dry, barren province of Sistan va Baluchestan is by and large Baluchi, making up around 2% of the country's population. These Baluchis are part of a greater whole that is spread across Pakistan and Afghanistan and about half are nomadic. They have distinctive facial features and dark skin, and speak Baluchi, a language related to Pashtu. They wear the shalwar kameez, a long loose shirt worn over baggy trousers, as in Pakistan, and their handiwork and embroidery is similar to that found in Pakistan and India, often incorporating mirrorwork. Baluchis are Sunni Muslims and are famous for camel races.