1930 Farsi Map of Iran and Its Provinces

A vibrantly-colored large format c. 1930 Farsi-language map of Persia or Iran divided into provinces. It reflects the country at the height of Reza Shah Pahlavi's modernizing reforms, including ambitious infrastructure projects.

A Closer Look

Iran, still Persia to outsiders at this time, is displayed with provinces color shaded for easy distinction. Cities are noted according to their size and function; Tehran (تهران) is marked with a square towards top-center, while provincial capitals such as Isfahan (اصفهان), Mashhad (مشهد), and Tabriz (تبریز) are marked with a solid black circle inside a black outlined circle. Waterways are illustrated to an impressive level of detail. At the left and right margins, an extensive table of distances is provided. Details are provided on neighboring countries and territories as well, including a diamond-shaped neutral zone along the disputed border of Iraq and Saudi Arabia, the result of a 1922 treaty.

Major roads and railways are indicated throughout. A key project of this era was the Trans-Iranian Railway, which snakes along a northeast-southwest axis from Bandar Shah (بَندَرِ شاه) on the Caspian Sea through Tehran and Qom and finally to Bandar Shahpur (بندر شاهپور) on the Persian Gulf. Long conceived and only partially built when this map was published, it was given new life under Reza Shah Pahlavi's rule and construction restarted in 1927, finally being completed in 1938.

Iran under Reza Shah Pahlavi

Reza Shah Pahlavi is in many ways an archetypal 20th century modernizing leader, similar to figures such as Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and Gamal Abdel Nasser, who also came from a military background. Combining secularism, strongman rule, and ambitious economic projects, Reza Shah aimed to take Iran from a lowly player on the geopolitical stage subject to the whims of stronger powers (namely Great Britain and Russia) and transform it into a powerful, unified, modern nation-state. In doing so, he was willing to ignore individual rights, suppress the identities of ethnic minorities, and challenge the country's powerful religious clergy. His record was mixed, and his legacy remains controversial, in part because of the subsequent revolution in 1979 that removed his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, from power and toppled his dynasty.

Publication History and Census

This map was published in Tehran and was designed by Mohammed Ali-Hıyaban-Nasir Hüsrev (or Khosrow, خسرو). Based on the ten provinces present here, the map must date to the 1920s or early 1930s. This map bears some resemblance to a similarly titled map (نقشۀ مفصل کشور ايران, OCLC 422500836) published in 1930 in Istanbul, but the relationship between the two, if any, is not clear. The present map is not known to be cataloged by any institution and has no known history on the market.