Iran's melting-pot capital that absorbed ancient Rhages
Tehran, Iran's capital of roughly nine million, anchors a metro area of 16.8 million, the Middle East's largest. Classical Rhages, once far grander, stood on part of the same ground and survives today as Rey, swallowed by the modern city.
Remains at Ray suggest people have lived here for over 6,000 years. In Median times part of today's city was a suburb of Rhages, which the Avesta lists as the 12th sacred place made by Ohrmazd and which some Middle Persian texts name as Zoroaster's birthplace; Darius I sent troops from it to aid his father against a Parthian revolt. Nearby Mount Damavand, Iran's highest peak, looms large in the Shahnameh as the spot where Fereydun chained the dragon-king Zahhak.
Rhages paid for resisting the Arabs. Yazdgerd III made his last appeal to the nation there in 641 before fleeing east, and after local nobles fought the invaders, the conquerors ordered the town razed and rebuilt. Tehran was a known village by the ninth century, overshadowed by Rhages, whose population a medieval writer put at about 500,000 before the Mongols ruined it in the 13th century and survivors fled to Tehran. A Castilian envoy passing through in 1404 on his way to Timur's court found an unwalled district.
Agha Mohammad Khan of the Qajars made Tehran capital in 1786, close to contested Caucasian lands and away from rival factions of older dynasties; the city council later declared 6 October Tehran Day for the date in 1907 when its capital status became official. Theories on the name include the bottom of the slope, for its site beneath the Alborz, and the linguist Zana Kamrani's warm place, contrasted with cooler Shemiran. English writers long favoured Teheran.
Golestan Palace is a World Heritage Site, and other landmarks include the Azadi Tower of 1971, built for the Persian Empire's 2,500th anniversary, and the Milad Tower of 2007. Tehran is home to more Azerbaijanis than any other city. Air pollution, earthquake risk and water shortages have prompted repeated but unapproved proposals to move the capital, and Mercer ranked it 203rd of 230 cities for quality of life in 2016.
Source: Tehran
