That city has been very much in the news lately for obvious reasons. Tehran, with a population of over 7 million, of course, is the capitol of Iran. It is located in the extreme north part of the country 1,000 air miles removed from its southermost part of the country. Some interesting facts:
* The city is not far from the south shore of the Caspian Sea, but separated from that body of water by a range of mountains called the Elburz Mountains that run along the north edge of the country.
* The Caspian Sea is billed as the world’s largest enclosed body of water covering 143,244 square miles. There is no outflow and the maximum depth is 3,363 feet.
* In Tehran, where the elevation is 3,800 feet, the average January temperatures are 45 in daytime and 30 at night. This compares to 53 and 32 for Birmingham. In July, their average high is 98 and the low 75.
* Tehran gets an average of only 9 inches of rain a year. Birmingham gets six times that much.
* The population of all of Iran is 65,600,000. If you overlaid the map of Iran on a USA map, it would take up only 21% of our country. Iran was known as Persia until 1935.
* With only 9 inches of rain a year, Tehran would be classified as a desert area, but as you go south and SE into the interior of Iran it is really, really desert country.
* Back to the mountain range north of Tehran, one of the highest mountain peaks reaches 18,405 feet.
(I enjoy doing these little features, but they are on a non-scheduled basis. I promise not to post “stuff” like this on days with heavy blog traffic, stormy times, etc. I hope to do a “Weather by the Numbers” tomorrow, which is my real favorite. I hope to explore many corners of the world with this “In Focus” feature.)
