The young capital of Iran is located on the slopes of the Alborz Mountains between 1100 m above sealevel in the south and 1700 m in the north. The area of Greater Tehran together with its suburbs has a population of about 15 Million people. At first glance, the city seems to be a vast and noisy agglomeration of faceless concrete houses, suffocating in its own traffic chaos. But the city is also a very modern and dynamic metropolis full of life – it is the heart of the country. Therefore, give the city a chance and have a closer look at it.

History

600 BC
Tehran is first mentioned as a well-known village near the important city of Raghes in the Median Empire. Raghes becomes later known as Ray and is nowadays a suburb of Greater Tehran.

11th and 12th Century
Raghes is at times capital of the Seljuk dynasty, while the nearby Tehran is still an insignificant orchard settlement with clear water north of Raghes. The inhabitants live in underground passages and caves and are famous for their excellent pomegranates.

1220 AD
When the Mongols attack the Seljuk settlement, many inhabitants of Ray flee into the underground passageways of the nearby village of Tehran. Ray is nearly completely destroyed.

14th Century
Tehran is now a marketplace and gradually developing into a medieval city. The nearby Ray remains uninhabited.

16th Century
The Safavid Shah Tahmasp I appreciates the pleasant climate on the slopes of the Alborz Mountains and the clear water that spills out there. He builds a strong city wall with six city gates and 114 towers. He also has a citadel errected on the site of the later Golestan Palaceas well as a new bazaar. But the later Safavid Shah Abbas The Great prefered Isfahan and made it his new capital.

18th Century
At the beginning of the century the Afghans destroy large parts of the city and murder a great number of the population. It is only by the end of the century under the Shiraz ruler Karim Khan Zand that the city prospers again. Karim Khan Zand moves his troops from Shiraz to Tehran in order to better control the uprising Qajars in the north of the country. Karim Khan Zand initiates the edification of a new palace and reinforces the walls of the city.After the death of Karim Khna Zand the Qajar seize the opportunity to take over the power. Out of fear of the influential people of Isfahan and Shiraz the Qajar decided to make the insignificant city of Tehran their new capital.

19th Century
In 1850 Tehran basically still consists of a walled citadel, a roofed bazaar and three neighborhoods with a population of merely 80’000 inhabitants. But in the year 1857 the Qajar Nasir al-Din Shah orders to tear down all of the fortification wall and to replace it by a much longer wall with 12 gates. The surface of the city is now five times bigger.

20th Century
It is under Reza Shah Pahlavi that Tehran finally loses its historical appearance. The city's walls are demolished, whole old districts are torn down and rebuilt from scratch. New streets and broad avenues are created, historic buildings are replaced by new ones influenced by classical Iranian architecture. Reza Shah wants his capital to look modern. In the year 1939 the city has a population of 500’000, twenty years later there are already nearly 2 Million people living there. Under the pressure of immigration from the countryside the slum areas in the south of the city explode. At the same time, in the north of the city luxurious apartment buildings and modern shopping malls are emerging on the slopes of the Alborz Mountains.

21st Century
The city is bursting. The classical Tehran two-story family house is replaced by new multi-story apartment houses, huge satellite cities are emerging on the outskirts of the city. The city resembles a vast construction site: new houses are being built everywhere, numerous new city expressways are constructed in an attempt to channel the growing traffic and in 1999 the first line of Tehran Metro is inaugurated. By now there are already seven lines in service, four more are to come.