Talk:Demographics of Iran

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[edit] 110% !!!!!

to dear User who gives this data:


Farsi-speaking 31%, Kurds 27%-Lur]] 6%, Baloch 4%, Turkic 26% (includes Azeri, Turkmen and other turkic Languages), Shomali(Gilaki-Mazandarani) 8%, Arabs 7%, other 1%(Data from Iranian minorities research center)
 in this link=> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Demographics_of_Iran&diff=29127254&oldid=29082201

then iran population is 110%!!!???? Please check at least ur total percentages before finishing the edit due to your ultra nationalistic tendency. --Dr.Hamed 21:02, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Percentages in Iran

What was once written many decades ago (c. 100 years ago), that the Persians in Iran comprise 51% of the population is an outdated data. That estimation was made when the Metropolitan Tehran had 1 million inhabitants. Right now it has 15 million. A great majority of these inhabitants are Persianised Azaris, Kurds, Gilaks etc. during the recent history. The latest official statistical data of Iran based on a population concensus states that 86.4% of the people in the metropolitan Tehran speaks Persian as his/her mother tongue and considers himself/herself of Persian ethnicity. This process is not confined to Tehran and has been in progress in whole of Iran in the last century. Recent university theses which deal with these changes estimate the Persians of Iran to be around 70% of the population now.

I added the Disputed notice, plus where the numbers came from. Now why exactly do you believe the CIA Factbook's numbers to be wrong? Fishal 06:25, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I explained above why the CIA numbers are wrong: because they are outdated. And notice that CIA thinks 1% of Iranians speak (Turkey's) Turkish as their mother tongue! Every child in Iran knows that this is absolutely wrong. That "data" was some vague guess made c. 40 years ago. It has no base in reality. Because Americans do not translate and study the latest statistics and data published by I.R. of Iran they have to stick to that outdated obsolete "data".

I will provide some new sources later (some in Persian). --Mani1 22:12, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'll revert the edits until we have some updated sources then. -- Chuq 11:42, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

One accurate statistics is available from 1370(1991) survey done in the Iranian month of Mordad. In that month the mother tongue of all new borns was asked and the result is that 54% spoke Persian, 10% spoke Kurdish, 9% spoke Luri/Bakhtiari which some consider a Persian dialect, 20.6% spoke Azeri-Turkish, .6% spoke Turkmen, 5% spoke Arabic and the rest is divided between Baluchi, Armenian, Assyrian and etc. So by these results about 74% of Iranians speak Indo-Iranian languages.

http://web.mit.edu/isg/survey.htm A recent survey done on Iranians outsitde of Iran found that Persian speakers are 70%+. The second largest group was 11% Azari speakers followed by 4% Kurdish speakers. Although the survey might not be as accurate as the first survey, but it should give weight to the 1991 survey.


Here is another source: http://i-cias.com/e.o/iran_4.htm

Persians

33,000,000 49%

Azeris

12,000,000 18%

Kurds

6,600,000 10%

Gilakis

3,700,000 6%

Lors

3,000,000 4%

Mazandaranis

2,700,000 4%

Baluchis

1,600,000 2.4%

Arabs

1,600,000 2.4%

Bakhtiaris

1,300,000 1.9%

Turkmens

1,100,000 1.6%

Armenians

400,000 0.6%


Another accurate source is statistical population of Iran which is widely recognized as accurate: http://www.statoids.com/uir.html

If we add Eastern Azarbaijan, half of Western Azarbaijan, all of Zanjan+1/3 of Tehran, we will get: 9190579/60055488=15%

From the above information , about 50% of Iran speaks standard Persian, 25% speak other Iranian languages (Kurdish, Luri, Northern dialects) and 25% speak Turkic languages.

This matches the information of Encyclopedia Britannica. "Iran is a multilingual and diverse cultural society, and the majority of the population is extremely young. Nearly one-half of the people speak Farsi, and another one-fourth speak some other Indo-European language or dialect. These are descendants of the Aryan tribes, whose origins are lost in antiquity. The Kurds, whose language has seen scant modification over the centuries, are a fierce nomadic people dwelling in the western mountains of Iran and in Iraq and Turkey. They constitute a small percentage of Iran's population. They have resisted the Iranian government's efforts, both before and after the revolution of 1979, to assimilate them into the mainstream of national life. Also inhabiting the western mountains are seminomadic Lurs, thought to be the descendants of the aboriginal inhabitants of the country. Closely related are the Bakhtyari tribes, who live in the Zagros Mountains west of Esfahan. Both speak Luri, a language distinct from, but related to, Farsi. The Baluchi are a smaller minority who inhabit Iranian Baluchistan, which borders on Pakistan.

About one-fifth of Iranians speak a variety of Turkic languages. The largest Turkic-speaking group is the Azerbaijani, a farming and herding people who inhabit two border provinces in the northwestern corner of Iran. Two other Turkic ethnic groups are the Qashqa'is in the Shiraz area to the north of the Persian Gulf and the Turkmen of Khorasan in the northeast.

The Armenians, with a different ethnic heritage, have maintained their Indo-European linguistic identity. They are concentrated in Tehran, Esfahan, and Azerbaijan and are engaged primarily in commercial pursuits. A few isolated remnants of Dravidians are found in the Sistan region to the southeast.

"

Another source is this:

http://www.acts.edu/oldmissions/Iranhist1.html

Composition of Peoples


(OPW) Peoples: Over 65 ethnic groups, many of which are small nomadic groups. Indo-Iranian 75.6%. Persian 25,300,000; Kurds 4,670,000; Luri-Bakhtiari 4,280,000; Mazanderani 3,265,000; Gilaki 3,265,000; Dari Persian 1,600,000; Balochi 1,240,000; Tat 620,000; Pathan 113,000; Talysh 112,000. Turkic 18.8%. Azerbaijani 8,130,000; Turkoman 905,000; Qashqai 860,000; Hazara 283,000; Teymur 170,000; Shahseven 130,000. Arab 2.2%. Mainly in southwest. Christian minorities 0.4%. Reduced from 1.5% in 1975 due to emigration. Armenian 170,000; Assyrian 40,000; Georgian 10,000. Other 3%. Gypsy (Nawar and Ghorbati) 1,188,000; Brahui 149,000; Jews 68,000. Refugees: Afghans 1.5 million, but decreasing; Iraqi Kurds 120,000 (at one stage in 1991 there were 1.2 million); Shi'a Arabs from Iraq.


The only source that might contradict this information is provided by ethnologue. But previous ethnologue sources used correct numbers: http://www.christusrex.org/www3/ethno/Iran.html

Ethnologue is not a scientific organization and the CIA factbook which is based on accurate statistical provincial information is the most accurate source.

There has been some pan-turkists making claims that Turkish is spoken by 50% of Iran's population but the reality is that it is only prevalent in the following provinces: Eastern Azarbaijan, Zanjan, Ardabil and is lightly dispersed in some neighboring province. For example West Azarbaijan is a majority Kurdish speaking region.


[edit] Ethnicity or Spoken Language?!!!

Dear Friend there are differrences between ethnicity & spoken language...A chinese man when speaks German can not change his genetic pattern and can not be germanized, then an Azeri (Azeri turk) when speakes Persian in tehran or other non-azerbaijani cities in iran, is not a persian , he only speakes persian... I think that CIA data is not correct be cause CIA doesn't consider persianized turks as turk in data. now in tehran more than 60% of people speak turkish (azeri turkish) as their mother tongue but in social life (i.e: offices, shops, factories etc) they speak persian because it's the only official language in iran (and this is a problem for more than 50% of iran people who their mother tongue is not persian) Now aday Azeris are spred in All cities of iran, milions of Azeris are living in Tehran, Mashad, Isfahan, shiraz or other Persian-called cities. There are informations that show about 50% percent of iran population are ethnological Turkic.

Traditionally Iranians identify themselves by the locality they hail from, such as Shirazi, Tabrizi, Mashhadi and so on. Ethnicity is a modern concept that seems poorly suited to the fluidity of Iranian linguistic situation. The people of Azerbaijan before the Aq Qoyunloo dynasty spoke a language called Azeri, extant in small pockets, that was closer to Middle Persian than Farsi is. They now speak a dialect of Turko-mongolian which is closest to Ottaman Turkish. As you said they did not change their genetics or even the bulk of their cultural practices when this change occured. Similarly Farsi Dari or Royal Persian did not originate in southern Iran amongst "ethnic Persians" but in the Samanid court in central Asia and most of the predominantly "Persian" cities are merely those which have been national capitals in the late or post Timurid period such as Tehran, Isfahan (Safavid), Shiraz (Jalayerid and Zand), Mashhad ( Afshar), Herat ( Late Timurid) and Kabul. The central cities of Iran such as Kerman and Yazd speak languages sufficiently close to Royal Persian that in recent years they have moved closer and closer to the standard official Farsi through exposrue to mass media.

No one in Iran thinks of themselves as ethnic "Fars". Even the word is somewhat ungainly and alien when used as an ethnic designation beyond the designation of the inhabitants of Shiraz and surrounds. The word Persian when used in the context of Persian art or Persian history merely refer to the international designation of Iran as Persia and should merely be read as Iranian art or history.

Similarly an "ethnological Turk" is as feeble a designation as "ethnological Persian". The HLA subtype frequency amongst Azerbaijani and non-Azerbaijani Iranians do not seem to show variation between the groups (or with Kurds of Iraq and Armenians for that matter) but is set apart from central Asian Turks, as well as West Anatolian and European Turks within the republic of Turkey.

Beyond locality and language there is no other ethnic difference that can be made between "Fars" and "ethnological Turks" in Iran from religious and cultural practice to appearance and genetic variation.

The comments of the contributor before me seem odd. Is he suggesting that Iran's Azeris are somehow ethnically more akin to central Asians than to other Iranians. Well based on cultural practices this is clearly untrue, based on genetic distance studies this is also untrue (cf work by Sforza on genetic map of humans. Beyond language what else seperates the linguistically diverse Iranians.

[edit] Edit war

I've reverted these changes [1] as they were poorly worded/formatted, from an anon, and they changed figures without specifying a source. Individually these may not be a problem but all at once made me suspicous. Rv back if someone more knowledgeable about this topic can confirm the info. -- Chuq 06:22, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Oh, not to mention the percentages don't add up to 100% -- Chuq 06:25, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I have reverted the vandal again, and added the following to the article text:

<!-- To the user who has been continually changing this article the last couple of weeks: Go to this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Demographics_of_Iran And please answer the questions posted there. If you do not, people will continue to revert your changes, and you will end up being banned from Wikipedia. -->

-- Chuq 05:02, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

This whole talk is very bizarre: People seem to make up statistical data based on their personal preferences (I deleted the last paragraph since it could be the start of a racist debate). There has to be one recent and reliable source to get stastics from and I think finding that source is key to this endless debate. That source should be a well-funded institute operating actively inside Iran and trusted by the general public. Now if anyone here cares enough to do a little bit of research to find such a source to get data from, it'll be greatly appreciated.


[edit] Numbers shown on this page are wrong

Based on the CIA factbook, [2], ethnic groups subsection, 51% of iranians are Persians, 24% Azeri and so on. If you look at the Language subsection, 58% are persian speaking (probably persian + Mazandaranis), 26% Turkish, and 9% Kurdish.

[edit] There is no ethnic group named "Aryan" in iran

This is quite far from reality. Nobody in iran calls himself an "Aryan". When you ask people about their ethnicity, they reply persian(Fars), Turk or Azeri, Kurd, Arab, Lur, Baloch and so on.

The word Iran as used by Ferdowsi and used as national designation since the Abbasid Caliphate is the shortened form of Middle Persian Iran Shahr from Old Persian Aryan Khshathra so Aryan is an old version of the word Iranian and not the domain of a particular ethnic group in Iran. Similarly who in Iran calls themselves Persian for that matter.

[edit] Ethnicity isnot Language

One cannot classify Persians as "Persian speakers", because of two reasons:

1) Ethinicity is a different concept than Language. We may all have varying degrees of English knowledge, but that certainly does not make us "English" in the ethnic sense of the word.

2) The official language of iran is Persian (Farsi), but not all people living in iran are ethnic persians. By ethnic persian, I mean people who are living in internal iranian plateau, east of Zagros mountain range, South of Caspain sea, from the south all the way down to the persian Gulf ( except Khuzistan province), and from east to the afghanistan border, (except for Balochistan). Whoever hails from this areas, is ethnicly persian.

My learned friend seems to have just invented a definition for ethnic Persian that is ad hoc and entirely arbitrary.

[edit] Lurs are Persian

All of Iranians are Persian except Arabs (1/3 of Khouzestan Province) and Turks (Ardabil, Eastern and Western Azarbaijan, Zanjan, some parts of Tehran and Gilan Provinces). Also there are a lot of Iranian people who're Aryan. Because of they are from Aryan race(green-eyed, dark hair, tall) and speak in an Aryan language. If you ask a lur about he/his race, he/she will answer you with only two words , "we are Persian from Aryan race" and if you ask Kurds about their race, they'ill answer you with only two words, "we are Mede from Aryan race", if somebody can't believe me, so take trip to Lorestan/Khouzestan/Chahamahal/Kohgiloye/Hamedan or Kurdestan/Kermanshah/Ilam and ask them !

[edit] TO User 81.95.106.47

Here is talk page, and every one can say his/her opinion with his/her own reasons here. It's not article, then u can't change their sentences and replace them with ur ideas. I rv the changes u made. please don't repeat this foolish game again.

[edit] Azeris are NOT Persians

Azeris have their own rich culture, language, heritage, and they are NOT Persians...Iranians yes, by virtue of Iranian citizenship...Persian no.68.100.160.15 20:27, 26 January 2006 (UTC)Azeroglu

Even though that is very true, I believe they should be included with persians. --(Aytakin) | Talk 03:40, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Iranian peoples

It has been proposed below that Demographics of Iran be renamed and moved to Iranian peoples. for more info please see: Talk:Iranian peoples. Thanks.Diyako Talk + 16:48, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

This is getting ridiculous, citizens of modern Iran are not one and the same as Iranic and Iranian peoples. Seriously, you guys need to get a grip and stop your vicious, unprincipled, politically-motivated anti-Iranian campaign on wikipedia. --ManiF 16:00, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Racist use of the word "Aryan"

This is the first source in the Aryan article. See how it says the phrase is "no longer in technical use"? That's what I was referring to. Even when it was used in the technical sense (which is no longer acceptable), the term was used to refer to the ethnicity of the Proto-Indo-Iranians (even this by itself is controversial). The Proto-Indo-Iranians lived more than 4,000 years ago. The modern Iranians have very little to do with the Proto-Indo-Iranians in terms race or ethnicity. To somehow try to re-introduce the word Aryan as the race or ethnicity of the modern Iranians is neither acceptable nor accurate. AucamanTalk 16:01, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Aryan"

That's not up to you to decide, now is it? Persians still use the term Aryan and consider themselves as mainly Aryan. There is nothing racist about this, it's their heritage. You have no proof for such a wild claim that modern Persians are not Aryan.

http://www.cais-soas.com/CAIS/Anthropology/aryans.htm

Sorry. Read your own source. "No evidence for such an Indo-European ethnic name has been found." This is in your own source. Read it. Also read this, this, and this. Stop using the term if you don't know its history or how to use it. AucamanTalk 01:18, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

You need to stop this Mr. Aucaman. Persians are Aryan, there is no discussion here. There are numerous sources about this:

http://library.thinkquest.org/04oct/01368/web/text/pre/pg-3.html

http://www.haryana-online.com/People/aryans.htm

--ManiF 01:33, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

You can't just do a google search and present the results as facts. These are not scholarly sources. Who are the authors? When were they published? You don't think the American Heritage definition is good enough? AucamanTalk 01:51, 26 February 2006 (UTC)


You want more scholarly sources? How about Encyclopædia Britannica, an internationally recognized source for information:

http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9009750?query=aryans&ct=

Isn't that good enough for you? --ManiF 02:04, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

"Aryan" is an archaic term based on 19th century notions of race, since debunked. The Britannica article says much the same thing. Jayjg (talk) 03:53, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
Also, where does it say that the modern Persians are descendants of the original "Aryans"? If Persians are Aryans, then by the same arguments Hindis are also Aryan. (In fact, the word "Aryan" is more frequently found in the Vedas than in the Gathas.) So you're saying mordern Persians and Hindis have the same race and ethnicity?? I'll try to find the rest of this article. Hopefully that would clear some misunderstandings. AucamanTalk 03:59, 26 February 2006 (UTC)


Thr article linked on the main page clearly refers to two-third of Iran's population as as Arayns. I really don't understand you, you admit that Persians were Aryan but you somehow think the modern Persians grew on trees or something. Persians were Aryan and continue to be. --ManiF 04:22, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I never said any people were Aryan. I simply don't believe in classification of people by race. As I said, it is highly subjective and unscientific. AucamanTalk 14:34, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Aucaman

Stop. Iranians/Persians are decent from the Aryans and that's a fact. However, that has nothing to do with the Nazi ideas of Aryans.

for some reason, wherever I go on wikipedia I see you editing and damaging the Iranian articles. You are an Israeli jew so what is with your obsession with Iranians. Just focus on your own area of expertise, Jews and Judaism!--194.170.175.5 06:58, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Please note that civility infractions and personal attacks are forbidden by Wikipedia policy. Jayjg (talk) 18:50, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Compromise

If your problem is the racist implications of the term "Aryan" then I'm fine with you replacing "Aryan" with "Indo-European" on all the disputed articles as long as you remove the dispute tags and stop vandalizing the Iran-related articles with nonsense like "Persians are a mix of Arabs, Turks and Mongols". You know how offensive that is? That's messing with an entire people's identity.

Comments?

--ManiF 05:00, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough. I'll try to rewrite some parts of this article to make it look like other demographics articles. It should probably start off with a discussion of Iran's population, not the different ethnicities. Just pick a country and look up its demographics page.
After I've made my changes we can discuss the changes. If we agree on the changes then I'll go ahead and remove the dispute tags. AucamanTalk 14:50, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree with this suggestion. --194.170.175.5 14:41, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Done. AucamanTalk 11:40, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unemployment

Is unemployment usually included under demographics information? I was going to take out one other paragraph but wanted to check here first. AucamanTalk 11:40, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Religious Minorities

The section on religious minorities does not seem to cite a source. Can anyone shed some light on these numbers? Currently the Wipikedia page Religious minorities in Iran does not show any population numbers after 1976 (i'm not sure that any official figures were produced after the revolution). I was wondering if there might be a useful source for this information --Indisciplined 13:53, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Map is inaccurate ...

These maps show, Dezful , Shoushtar, Andimeshk , Ramhormoz, Behbahan are where Arabs are ! false ! Arabs are in Ahvaz, Susa, Susanguerd, Bostan, Shadegan, ... I think maps are biased ...

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