Administrative divisions of Iran

On the first level of country subdivisions of Iran are the provinces.

Each province is further subdivided into counties called shahrestan (Persian: شهرستان shahrestān), and each shahrestan is subdivided into districts called bakhsh (Persian: بخش bakhsh). There are usually a few cities (Persian: شهر shahr) and rural agglomerations (Persian: دهستان dehestān) in each county. Rural agglomerations are a collection of a number of villages. One of the cities of the county is appointed as the capital of the county.

According to the Statistical Center of Iran^[1], the figures are as follows, as of March 2005 (end of Iranian Calendar 1383):

To better understand such subdivisions, the following table may be helpful. Assume that province P is divided into two counties: A and B. County A has 3 districts: Central, X, and Y. The Central district is the district that contains City M, the capital of the county. Each district might contain one or more cities and/or one or more RAs (rural agglomerations). In our example, the Central district contains City M, City N, and RA T composed of the villages V1, V2, V3, and V4, in turn; district X contains City O and RA U; and district Y has no cities and one RA V. The minimal county consists of only one city as the only district, named Central, of course. The county B in the following table is of such type, containing only one city Q.

References and notes