Northern Iran (), is a geographical term that refers to a relatively large and fertile area, consisting of the southern border of the Caspian Sea and the Alborz mountains.
It includes the provinces of Gilan, Mazandaran, and Golestan (ancient kingdom of Hyrcania and Tehran Province, medieval region of Tabaristan). The major provinces, Gilan and Mazandaran, are covered with dense forests, snow-covered mountains and impressive sea shores.
The major cities are Rasht, Gorgan, Sâri, Bâbol, Babolsar Amol, Qaem Shahr, Gonbad-e Kavus, Anzali, Lahijan and Behshahr. Northern Iran has numerous villages, particularly Massulé, appreciated by travellers.
Northern Iran was a trendy spot during the Pahlavi era, especially among foreign tourists. It was a luxurious place that provided all types of modern recreational facilities as well as tourism infrastructure. Today, it's mostly visited by domestic tourists.
Mazandaran is the most populous of the 3 provinces of northern Iran, with 3,283,582 people at the time of 2016 census. Gilan's population in 2016 was 2,530,696 people and Golestan had the lowest population with 1,868,819 people.
The total population of the 3 provinces according to 2016 census was 7,683,097 people, with 2,486,429 households.
The northern provinces of Iran are the motherland and fatherland of the Tabari people (Mazandarani and Katul people), Gilaks, Talashes, Tats, and the majority of the population of these three provinces are the Tabaris (Mazandarani and Katul people), Gilaks, Talashes, and Tats, who speak the language They speak Tabari (Mazandarani and Katuli), Gilaki language, Talshi language and Tati language. In addition to their mother tongue, the people of northern Iran also speak Persian.Iran is a very diverse country. "Dialect wise" there are different sub-languages and dialects of native speakers in the north of Iran as well the rest of the country. From the east to the west there are five major languages and hundreds of local dialects. If you talk to a native Iranian "north of Iran" are only the provinces on the south side of Caspian Sea which are GilÃÂn, MÃÂzandarÃÂn and GolestÃÂn, the last one has been separated from MÃÂzandarÃÂn province at 1997. Here is the map of Iran with its provinces. Despite Iranian opinion of the north of Iran, KhorÃÂsan at the east and the two ÃÂzerbÃÂijÃÂns at the west side of Iran are geographically at the north of Iran, therefore, their languages have been included in this article.
From the northeast, Khorasan which is a large province laid out from the north to the middle south of Iran and is a neighbor to the Afghanistan border. The language from the north to the south of this province changes drastically, In the north of KhorÃÂsan people speak âÂÂGhaz Turkishâ going from the north to the middle of the province, the dialect changes to some sort of Arabic which belonged to an old Iraqi Arabic language. This language has been mixed drastically with Persian language which makes it impossible for an Arab speaker to understand it. There are some Kurdish speakers in the north of khorÃÂsan as well.
From the north of Iran heading to the west, the next province is GolestÃÂn which has its own diversity in languages. until 1997 GolestÃÂn was a part of MÃÂzandarÃÂn province. The main languages from the east to the west in this province are Turkmen, Turkish and then MÃÂzandarÃÂni which is among the oldest written languages of the country. MÃÂzandarÃÂni
MÃÂzandarÃÂn is the neighboring province which has the language of MÃÂzandarÃÂni all over the province which has over tens of different dialects in different regions., almost all of them are sub categories of MÃÂzandarÃÂni. Native people of MÃÂzandarÃÂn call themselves Tabari and their Mazanderani language . The name Tapuri / Tabari (which was the name of an ancient language spoken somewhere in former Tapuria) is now used in preference to the name Mazandarani by the young. The earliest references to the language of Mazandaran, called Tabari, are to be found in the works of the early Muslim geographers. Al-Muqaddasë (or Moqaisi, 10th century), for example, notes: "The languages of Komish and Gurgan are similar, they use hÃÂ, as in hÃÂ-dih and hÃÂk-un, and they are sweet [to the ear], related to them is the language of Tabaristan, [similar] save for its speediness."
The next province is GilÃÂn, people of GilÃÂn have three major languages: Gilaki language, RudbÃÂri and TÃÂleshi with some other old languages which are spoken in small region on GilÃÂn only. In the western side of GilÃÂn people speak some sort of Gilaki which is heavily mixed with ÃÂzari Turkish, the language of the neighboring province.
After GilÃÂn in the northwest of Iran, there are two ÃÂzerbÃÂijÃÂn provinces, the east and west ones, the main language is ÃÂzari Turkish which is native language to the people of these provinces.
Majority of young generations of Iranian, in all over the country, are able to speak, read, and write Persian, which is a national language of the country and they learn it in schools.