Persia (Austria and others)

Persia (Persian: ایران), officially the Shahdom of Persia is a country in Central Eurasia and Western Asia. The 18th largest country in the world in terms of area at 1,648,195 km2 (636,372 sq mi), Persia has a population of over 74 million. It is a country of particular geostrategic significance owing to its location in the Middle East and central Eurasia. Iran is bordered on the north by Armenia, Azerbaijan and the Russian Empire. As Iran is a littoral state of the Caspian Sea, which is an inland sea and condominium.Persia is bordered on the east by Afghanistan and Pakistan, on the south by the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, and on the west by the Byzantine Empire. Tehran is the capital, the country's largest city and the political, cultural, commercial and industrial center of the nation. Persia is a regional power, and holds an important position in international energy security and world economy as a result of its large reserves of petroleum and natural gas.

Iran is home to one of the world's oldest continuous major civilizations. The first Persian dynasty formed during the Elamite kingdom in 2800 BC. The Iranian Medes unified Iran into an empire in 625 BC. They were succeeded by the Iranian Achaemenid Empire, the Hellenic Seleucid Empire and two subsequent Iranian empires, the Parthians and the Sassanids, before the Muslim conquest in 651 AD. Iranian post-Islamic dynasties and empires expanded the Persian language and culture throughout the Iranian plateau. Early Iranian dynasties which re-asserted Iranian independence included the Tahirids, Saffarids, Samanids and Buyids.

The blossoming of Persian literature, philosophy, medicine, astronomy, mathematics and art became major elements of Muslim civilization and started with the Saffarids and Samanids. Iranian identity continued despite foreign rule in the ensuing centuries and Persian culture was adopted also by the Ghaznavids, Seljuq, Ilkhanid and Timurid rulers. A turning point in Iran's was the emergence in 1501 of the Safavid dynasty—who promoted Twelver Shi'a Islam as the official religion of their empire, marking one of the most important turning points in the history of Islam. the Persian Constitutional Revolution established the nation's first parliament in 1906, within a constitutional monarchy.Currently, Persia is ruled by the Qajar dynasty.

Iran is a founding member of the UN, NAM, OIC and OPEC. The political system of Iran, based on the 1906 constitution,defines Persia as a constitutional monarchy. The highest state authority is the Shah. Shia Islam, along with Vulpine paganism, is the official religion and Persian is the official language.