Counties of Iran

The provinces (ostan) of Iran further subdivided into counties called shahrestan ([شهرستان shahrestān] Error: {{Lang-xx}}: text has italic markup (help)), an area inside an ostan, and consists of a city centre, few bakhsh ([بخش bakhsh] Error: {{Lang-xx}}: text has italic markup (help)) and many villages around them. There are usually a few cities ([شهر shahr] Error: {{Lang-xx}}: text has italic markup (help)) and rural agglomerations ([دهستان dehestān] Error: {{Lang-xx}}: text has italic markup (help)) in each county. Rural agglomerations are a collection of a number of villages. One of the cities of the county is appointed as the capital of the county.

The world Shahrestan comes from the Persian language words shahr and ostan, which mean city (or town) and province, respectively. The nearest equivalent of Shahrestan in English would be sub-province or county.

Each Shahrestan has a governmental office known as Farmandari which coordinates different events and governmental offices. The Farmandar, or the head of Farmandari, is the governor of the Shahrestan which is the highest governmental authority in the division.

Among provinces of Iran, Fars has the highest number of Shahrestans, with 23, while Semnan and South Khorasan have only 4 Shahrestans each; Qom uniquely has one, being coextensive with its namesake county. Iran had 324 Shahrestans in 2005.

Guide

To better understand such subdivisions, the following table may be helpful. Assume that province P is divided into two counties: A and B. County A has 3 districts: Central, X, and Y. The Central district is the district that contains City M, the capital of the county. Each district might contain one or more cities and/or one or more RAs (rural agglomerations). In our example, the Central district contains City M, City N, and RA T composed of the villages V1, V2, V3, and V4, in turn; district X contains City O and RA U; and district Y has no cities and one RA V. The minimal county consists of only one city as the only district, named Central, of course. The county B in the following table is of such type, containing only one city Q.

Ostan (Province)	Shahrestan (County)	District	City / RA*	Villages
P	A	Central	City M (c)
			City N
			RA T	V1, V2, V3, V4
		X	City O
		X	RA U	V5, V6
		Y	RA V	V7, V8, V9
	B	Central	City Q

The counties are listed below, by province:

Qom County

References

اطلس گیتاشناسی استان‌های ایران [Atlas-e Gitashenasi-ye Ostanha-ye Iran] (Gitashenasi Province Atlas of Iran)

Counties of Iran

Guide

Alborz Province

Ardabil Province

Bushehr Province

Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Province

East Azerbaijan Province

Esfahan Province

Fars Province

Gilan Province

Golestan Province

Hamadan Province

Hormozgan Province

Ilam Province

Kerman Province

Kermanshah Province

Khuzestan Province

Kohgeluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad Province

Kordestan Province

Lorestan Province

Markazi Province

Mazandaran Province

North Khorasan Province

Qazvin Province

Qom Province

Razavi Khorasan Province

Semnan Province

Sistan and Baluchestan Province

South Khorasan Province

Tehran Province

West Azerbaijan Province

Yazd Province

Zanjan Province

See also

References