Iran Country Quiz

Can you guess these facts about the country of Iran?
Quiz by Quizmaster
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Last updated: May 16, 2020
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First submittedMarch 14, 2014
Times taken41,749
Average score60.0%
Rating4.42
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Hint
Answer
Capital city
Tehran
Official language
Persian
Official branch of Islam
Shia
Most important export
Oil
Currency of Iran
Rial
National sport
Freestyle Wrestling
Sea that borders Iran to the north
Caspian Sea
Title of the Iranian ruler who was overthrown in 1979
Shah
Leader of the 1979 revolution
Ruhollah Khomeini
Religious title of the above
Ayatollah
What that leader called the U.S.
The Great Satan
Hint
 
Answer
Strait between the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman
Strait of Hormuz
Iran is the only non-African country with a native population of this big cat
Cheetah
Country that Iran fought a terrible war against from 1980-1988
Iraq
Kings of ancient Persia called "The Great"
C
Cyrus
D
Darius
X
Xerxes
Mountain range starting with Z
Zagros
Most of Iran is located in this region
Iranian Plateau
Prophet also called Zarathustra
Zoroaster
+9
Level 82
May 15, 2014
Got everything except for wrestling. I tend to do better on these that are set in Asia or the Middle East than I do on the ones about European countries. Either the European ones are harder or this is just showing the bias in my life experiences.
+5
Level 64
May 15, 2014
apparently I can't spell shah.
+17
Level 82
May 15, 2014
The quiz will also accept "shahmwow"
+2
Level 73
Sep 26, 2015
Lol xD
+5
Level 82
Sep 1, 2016
Typed 'football' for national sport, since I think it's far more popular these days, but got wrestling eventually. Otherwise nice and easy.
+4
Level 84
May 25, 2017
I actually tried buzkashi first.
+13
Level 82
Nov 7, 2017
This time I tried "dead goat polo" but apparently that's only the national sport of Kyrgyzstan.
+2
Level 93
Jul 22, 2018
i got the 1979 leader by putting what i thought it was and starting to delete the middle part. No idea what spelling variant was actually accepted.
+16
Level 49
Nov 6, 2019
I wouldn't ever set my foot in a country where hijab is enforced on women.
+3
Level 76
May 18, 2020
Families tend to enforce this. Even in your country. Especially if the immigrants are from Africa, Middle East, South or South East Asia.
+13
Level 71
May 19, 2020
Or where gays are executed...
+5
Level 89
May 19, 2020
A little outside influence wouldn't hurt.
+6
Level 89
Jul 19, 2020
Don't worry. If you ever get captured, Ben Affleck will try to save you!
+5
Level 82
Jul 19, 2020
if he's not too busy saving us from Islamophobia.
+8
Level 60
Jul 19, 2020
Most Iranian women don't wear hijab due to enforcement, rather by free will, though. Also, I wouldn't ever set foot in a country where racism is still a thing and people eat each other's genitals.
+16
Level 56
Jul 19, 2020
Whoa, in which country do people eat each others genitals?
+9
Level 82
Jul 19, 2020
That sounds like some of the crazy things that my Saudi students would say about Iranians, Bengalis, and Jews... and I thought the stuff that Americans believed about Mexicans was bad...
+14
Level 72
Jul 19, 2020
@Elgengrau You are very lucky if you live in a country where racism doesn't exist. Sadly, it is still a thing most everywhere...
+11
Level 82
Jul 19, 2020
His profile says he's from Pakistan. Racism still very much alive and well there.
+4
Level 79
Nov 2, 2020
Indeed it is.
+2
Level 75
Jul 20, 2020
I'd love to go to Iran, myself. Maybe sometime after their government stops being quite to hostile to US citizens.
+7
Level 57
Aug 27, 2020
Iran welcomes US Citizens, I go to Iran every two years during the summer. No issue, always welcome. Probably the only country in the Middle East with the best food, best culture/history, and greatest hospitality. 10/10 Would Recommend. Might even take my friend with me for a couple of weeks next year, depending on COVID.
+1
Level 82
Jul 6, 2022
Lebanon and Cyprus have better food. Israel's is comparable. So is Turkey's.

Turkey, Syria, and Lebanon have comparable amounts of culture/history. Israel and Egypt have more.

Many countries are more hospitable, especially toward Americans. (almost all of them)

+2
Level 62
Dec 10, 2022
Israel has better food and more culture and history? Nice joke.
+1
Level 82
Dec 20, 2022
you sound like you know what you're talking about
+2
Level 35
May 20, 2020
I think they have to understand and change, if it is imposed by another state, not only is it useless but can be used in the future as an excuse to go back to the past
+4
Level 76
May 28, 2020
I tried like 5 different spellings of Cambyses before remembering the existence of the greatest great Persian king of them all.
+3
Level 67
Jul 19, 2020
Only got wrestling because I remembered that Kurt Angle won his gold medal against an Iranian and I always thought that was weird because you don't hear a lot about Iran in the Olympics.
+6
Level 72
Jul 19, 2020
Never heard of the Iranian Plateau before. I only got it because I had time to spare and started typing every geographical formation I could think of.
+2
Level 60
Jul 19, 2020
Sounds about right
+10
Level 72
Jul 19, 2020
I would maybe concede that Miley Cyrus is good. But great? Nah.
+5
Level 78
Jul 20, 2020
It refers to Billy Ray Cyrus surely....
+4
Level 75
Jul 22, 2020
Nice to see him on the same quiz with Darius Rucker. I'm a fan of anyone who can go from Hootie and the Blowfish to a member of the Grand Ole Opry.
+2
Level 72
Jul 29, 2020
First 14 questions are reasonably get-able. Then you hit the last six like a brick wall.
+1
Level 82
Dec 20, 2022
Nice to see you complaining about some easy questions being impossible to get that aren't related to America for a change.
+2
Level 87
Aug 25, 2020
Good quiz!

Love Persian history and culture.

Can you accept “u” for “o” in both “Khomeiny” and “Ayattollah”? I just gave up on spelling them right because I stuck on the “u” spelling, and got 18/20...

+5
Level 70
Sep 3, 2020
The quiz refers to cheetahs as big cats and in a literal sense this is of course appropriate. A stricter definition of the term 'big cat', also reflected by academic usage, only includes members of the genus Panthera. Namely, they are leopard, lion, jaguar, tiger and snow leopard. The cheetah (genus Acinonyx) is not normally associated with this group, particularly due to major anatomical differences. Personally, i would be immensely pleased, if the phrase 'big cat' could be changed to a more agreeable alternative, for example 'large cat'.
+2
Level 69
Apr 13, 2021
^
+1
Level 67
Nov 29, 2022
Yeah, I tried lion and leopard before I went for cheetah.
+2
Level 52
Mar 19, 2021
For some reason, I kept on typing "Cyprus" for "Cyrus"
+2
Level 64
May 3, 2022
Well, Cyrus didn't conquer Europe :)
+1
Level 53
May 5, 2021
Cool Quiz! One thing tho: I know it's pretty nitpicky, but the caspian sea isn't actually a sea, but a lake/the biggest lake on earth ;) It even adds to the difficulty of the question if you put it like that!
+1
Level 71
May 27, 2021
If anyone wants to take another cool quiz on Iran (or just see a cool map), try mine here!
+3
Level 33
Jun 29, 2021
I doubt most Americans know that the CIA in 1953 staged a violent, deadly coup that resulted in the overthrow of the legitimate, democratically-elected, moderate government. The CIA gave more power back to the corrupt monarchy.

If the US hadn't actually actively overthrown a perfectly decent government in 1953, there would have been no "Great Satan" comment from the fundamentalist leadership that came to power in 1979.

+1
Level 82
Oct 16, 2022
ridiculous.

The Shah had been in power for decades, his family for millennia, which had nothing at all to do with the USA. When, in the early 50s, an internal power struggle in Iran ensued between the Western-friendly progressive and legitimately in-power Shah on one side, and the belligerent, racist, xenophobic, theft-endorsing upstart prime minister on the other side, foreign interests (mostly the British) obviously backed the Shah. The British persuaded the US to help them help the Shah stay in power by inflaming American paranoia about growing Soviet influence in the region, and so they did. To this end, the CIA helped stage a riot in Tehran which the government used as an excuse for a violent crack down that removed the P.M. from the position of power he had assumed for the last few months.

To characterize this series of events as an American-staged coup is ridiculous. To fantasize that Iran was somehow going to become a beacon of peace, democracy, and stability..

+2
Level 82
Oct 16, 2022
... if only those damn Americans hadn't intervened is similarly ridiculous.

America didn't create the Ayatollahs. It didn't popularize Islamic fundamentalism in Iran. America didn't turn Iran into an oppressive backward theocracy. America didn't make the Iranian monarchy corrupt or decadent. This trend of blaming all of your problems on foreigners is what led to Mossadegh being such a poor but popular leader. It's what Khomeini and Khamenei have both continued on with to distract from their own failings as leaders. And it's what led to America being characterized as the Great Satan - which at the time was largely in response to Jimmy Carter agreeing to allow the gravely ill Shah into the country to receive much needed medical care, and then neglecting to surrender an elderly cancer patient to the angry mob calling for his blood.

Take some personal responsibility. Blaming everyone else for decades has gotten you nowhere.

+3
Level 33
Jun 29, 2021
There's so much to learn about Iran!

Cyrus the Great, for instance, allowed the the peoples who had been exiled from their lands under the Babylonian empire to return; one of those peoples was the Jewish people. The edict itself is inscribed on the Cyrus cylinder, on display in the British Museum.

The Persian Empire (Achaemenid) was one of the greatest empires ever. It was a multi-ethnic, multi-faith, tolerant entity. It allowed the Greek cities of Ionia a substantial amount of autonomy. (Too bad about Xerxes, though--he really ruined things with his invasion of Greece.) The ruins of this empire in Susa and Persepolis are among the most exquisite ancient ruins anywhere.

The Persian empire was also an inspiration to the founders of the US Republic.

The coins of the Persian empire, the "Darics" are among the most iconic in ancient coin collecting, featuring a kneeling archer.

Zoroastrianism had a substantial influence on Judaism and Christianity. Zarathustra inspired Nietzsche.

+2
Level 33
Jun 29, 2021
That was just the ancient stuff, and I'm omitting so much. The Khwarazmian Empire is the greatest empire you've never heard of.

The famous poet Rumi was a subject of this empire, although technically he was born in what we now call Afghanistan. Who's Rumi? "A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou." That Rumi!

I know far less about the centuries after the fall of the Khwarazmian Empire until the disastrous US intervention in 1953, but I'm sure there's much that's interesting to learn there, too. One thing I do know is that there are many Islamic paintings from the medieval era showing human figures, so the next time you read in the media that Islam does not allow the depiction of the body, remember that this is not true for all times and places.

+1
Level 59
Jan 30, 2022
I always thought that Iran's national sport was Football.Then again,countries in the Caucasus and near are good at wrestling like Armenia,Iran,Turkey,and Russia.
+1
Level 53
May 6, 2022
the caspian sea is a lake not a sea. But its good
+1
Level 42
Aug 13, 2022
What's the red and gold flag/symbol with the bird at the top?
+1
Level 50
Feb 2, 2024
Google says its the "Battle-standard of Cyrus the Great"
+1
Level 60
Feb 10, 2023
18/20, couldn't think of Zagros spelling. Didn't have a clue on the revolution one, though.