What is the capital of Iran?

Tehran was a modest town until the late eighteenth century, when the founder of the Qajar dynasty, Agha Mohammad Khan, chose it as his capital. The logic was dynastic and strategic rather than cultural: it lay near his tribal power base and the Caspian provinces, and it was defensible at the foot of the Alborz mountains, which rise steeply just to the north. From there the city expanded enormously through the twentieth century, absorbing surrounding villages and climbing the slopes, so that the wealthier districts sit noticeably higher and cooler than the older southern quarters. That same topography traps polluted air in the basin below the mountains during the winter. Iran's older capitals lie elsewhere and are richer in monuments, which is why Isfahan and Shiraz look far more like what people expect a Persian capital to look like.

The ruins of Persepolis, the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid empire, stand in the south of the country near Shiraz.