Family and Family Change in Iran

The Islamic Republic of Iran is 89 percent Shiite Muslims, which differs from the Sunnite of most Arab countries. Iran is slightly larger than the U.S. state of Alaska with a population of sixty-eight million. About 67 percent of the population is urban. Languages include Farsi and its dialects (58 percent), Turkic (26 percent), Kurdish (9 percent), and several others spoken by small groups. According to the Human Development Index, Iran has a medium level of human development, ranked at ninety-sixth of 177 countries, an improvement over the 101 rank in 2004 (United Nations Development Programme [UNDP], 2004, 2006; World Factbook, 2006).