Persians
مردم فارس | |
|---|---|
| Total population | |
| c. 52–68 million | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Iran | 51,940,000–67,980,000 |
| Languages | |
| Persian | |
| Religion | |
| Majority: Shia Islam (Twelver) Minority: Zoroastrianism, Christianity, Baháʼí Faith, Sunni Islam, and various others | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Other Southwestern Iranian peoples, Iranian Arabs, Kurds, Balochs | |
total. Replace with population.Persians, or Persian people, are an Iranian ethnic group indigenous to the Iranian plateau that comprise the majority of the population of modern-day Iran. They have a common cultural system and are native speakers of the Persian language. In the Western world, "Persian" was largely understood as a demonym for all Iranians rather than as an ethnonym for the Persian people, but this understanding shifted in the 20th century.
The Persians are descended from ancient Iranian peoples who migrated to Persis (also called "Persia proper" and corresponding with Iran's Fars Province) by the 9th century BC. Although Persians, Kurds, and other Iranian tribes originally migrated from Central Asia to Iran in the second millennium BCE, genetic evidence suggests that modern Iranians are mostly descended from the ancient indigenous populations of the Iranian Plateau, rather than being primarily descended from only Central Asian migrants, depending on the ethnic group. Alongside the various ethnicities and cultures that they were contemporaries with, they established and ruled some of the world's most powerful empires, which are widely recognized for their massive cultural, political, and social influence in the ancient Near East and beyond. Persians have contributed greatly to art and science, and Persian literature is one of the world's most prominent literary traditions both inside and outside of Iran. The regional prestige of their civilization was the basis for the development of many noteworthy Persianate societies, especially among the Turkic peoples, throughout Central Asia and South Asia.
In contemporary terminology, Persian-speaking people from Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan are known as Tajiks, with the former two countries having mutually intelligible Persian varieties called Dari and Tajiki, respectively; whereas those from the Caucasus (primarily in the Republic of Azerbaijan and in Dagestan, Russia), albeit heavily assimilated, are known as Tats. Historically, however, the terms Tajik and Tat were used synonymously and interchangeably with Persian. Many influential Persian figures hailed from outside of Iran's modern borders—to the northeast in Afghanistan and Central Asia, and, to a lesser extent, to the northwest in the Caucasus proper.
Additionally, several Persian dynasties ruled Greater Iran from outside of modern-Iran's borders. The Samanid Empire, whose founder Saman Khuda hailed from Balkh, ruled much of Greater Iran from Bukhara (present-day Uzbekistan). The Saffarid dynasty governed much of Greater Iran from Zaranj (present-day Afghanistan), and the Ghurid dynasty ruled parts of Greater Iran from Firozkoh (present-day Afghanistan). The former two dynasties contributed significantly to the restoration of the Persian language and identity following the Arab conquest of Persia, with arguably the most important outcome being the Samanid patronage behind the composition of the Shahnameh.