A 2,000-kilometre plateau wedges Arabia against Eurasia
The Iranian—or Persian—Plateau is a geological high spanning parts of Central, South, and West Asia plus the South Caucasus, wedged between the Arabian and Indian plates on the Eurasian plate. From the Caspian toward the Sulaiman Mountains it stretches nearly 2,000 kilometres across most of Iran, all of Afghanistan, and Pakistan west of the Indus.
The Zagros wall it off on the west, the Caspian and the Köpet Dag range on the north, Armenia’s highlands on the northwest, and the Hindu Kush and Sulaiman ranges to the east, while the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz lie south. Its area is roughly 3,700,000 square kilometres, and slivers reach into Azerbaijan, Iraqi Kurdistan and Turkmenistan. Despite the word plateau, it is anything but flat: Noshaq in the Hindu Kush tops out at 7,492 metres, and the Lut Desert east of Kerman sinks below 300.
Geologists see it as a patchwork of Gondwanan fragments jammed together, with the Turan platform on one side and the Zagros fold belt on the other, marking the seam where Arabia pushes into Eurasia. Iran’s long tradition of economic geology has made it a well-studied collision zone. A stricter geological definition keeps only the land north of the folded belts, leaving out southwestern Iran, and Britannica excludes lowland Khuzestan. In the northwest, the Anti-Taurus averages over 3,000 metres and carries Mount Ararat at 5,137, while the Aras, Tigris and Euphrates all rise nearby.
After leaving Africa, modern humans may have used the plateau as a hub where eastern and western Eurasian lineages split about 50,000 years ago. In the Bronze Age, Elam spanned the Zagros between Mesopotamia and the uplands, and cuneiform texts mention the kingdoms of Aratta, perhaps in the central plateau. Parthia, Media and Persis lay here; the Achaemenids from Fars gave the region the name Persia, and from Sasanian times Erān, source of modern Irān, named the state.
Oak woods grow near Shiraz, and poplar was cut for doors and elm for ploughs. Leopards, bears, hyenas, ibex and mouflon roam the wooded mountains, and sturgeon, the most valuable commercial fish, swims in the Caspian. Farmers raise wheat, barley, cotton and tobacco, with pistachios and almonds in warmer districts and caraway in Kerman.
Source: Iranian plateau
