Tehran - Demographics

Demographics

The city of Tehran (not to be confused with the larger, Metropolitan Tehran) had a population of approximately 7.8 million in 2006. With its cosmopolitan atmosphere, Tehran is home to diverse ethnic and linguistic groups from all over the country. The native language of the city is the Tehrani accent of Persian and the majority of people in Tehran identify themselves as Persian. Minority groups include Azeri, Kurds, Arabs, Baluch, Armenians, Bakhtiari, Assyrians, Talysh, and more. According to a 2010 census conducted by the Sociology Department of Tehran University in many districts of Tehran across various socio-economic classes in proportion to population sizes of each district and socio-economic class, 63% of people in Tehran were born in Tehran, 98% know Persian, 67% identify themselves as ethnic Persian, and 13% have some degree of proficiency in a European language.

Tehran saw a drastic change in its ethno-social composition in the early 1980s. After the political, social and economic consequences of the Islamic Revolution of Iran in 1979 and the years that followed, many Iranian citizens, mostly Tehranis, left Iran due to mounting political, social and, most importantly, religious pressure. Many Iranians moved to countries such as Canada, the United States, France, Sweden and other European countries. The highest Iranian emigration has been to the United States, France and Canada.

With the start of the Iran–Iraq War (1980–1988) following an Iraqi invasion, a second wave of inhabitants fled the city, especially during Iraqi air offensive on the capital. With most major powers backing Iraq at that time, economic isolation caused even more reasons for the inhabitants to leave the city (and the country). Having left all they had and having struggled to adapt to a new country and build a life, most of them never came back when the war was over. During the war, Tehran also received a great number of migrants from the west and the southwest of the country bordering Iraq.

The unstable situation and the war in neighboring Afghanistan and Iraq prompted a rush of refugees into the country who came in millions, with Tehran being a magnet for modest workers who helped the city to recover from war wounds, charging far less than local construction workers. Many of these refugees are being repatriated with the assistance of UNHCR but there are still sizable groups of Afghan and Iraqi refugees in Tehran who are reluctant to leave, being pessimistic about the situation in their respective country of origin. Afghan refugees are mostly Persian-speaking Hazara or Tajiks, speaking a dialect of Persian, and Iraqi refugees, who are mainly Shia Muslim Mesopotamian Arabic-speakers of Iranian origin.

The majority of Tehranis are believed to be moderate followers of Twelver Shia Islam, which is also the state religion, but it cannot be confirmed independently for lack of independent statistics. Religious minorities include followers of various sects of Sunni Islam, Mystic Islam, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity (including the adherents of the Assyrian Church of the East, Armenian Apostolic Church, Roman Catholic Church, Chaldean Catholic Church, Iranian Protestant churches like Jama'at-e Rabbani (Assemblies of God), Armenian Evangelical Church, Armenian Brotherhood Church, Russian Orthodox Church, and the Presbyterian Church) and some from the Bahá'í Faith. Tehran also has small number of third generation Iranian Sikh community that has a gurudwara visited by Indian Prime Minister in 2012. Despite being the seat of a theological government and the fact that most important religious unions and academies of the country are based in Tehran, half of the city (northern area) remains the most liberal in the nation, a fact that attracts many young people from elsewhere to study in the capital.