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Persia has wielded massive international
influence and prestige but there's
always been one problem that severely
limits any civilization in Iran
including the modern Iran Iran's
geographic spawnpoint
is nerfed and here's why take a look at
this topographic map of the country to
the west are the Zagros Mountains a
large chain that makes up a significant
portion of the border with your rock
into the North or the Alborz mountains
together the Saros and Alborz
largely protect the iranian heartland
located atop high plains inside in
modern times of the eighth largest
iranian cities with over 1 million
inhabitants only one of them Avaaz is
located outside of this heartland
between the mountains here on the plains
the connect to rock iran's various
mountains separate people and languages
which has caused numerous ethnic and
linguistic groups to develop inside of
the area transportation between areas of
iran by ground has always been difficult
meaning that whatever regime rules must
rule strongly and often harshly in order
to keep the disconnected in diverse
areas across the mountains united the
major cities of Persia have always been
located across these various valleys and
high plains in between the numerous
mountains which serves as a kind of
double-edged sword on the one hand the
mountain ranges make any invasion of
Iran a difficult operation the Zagros
can be used as an easily defensible high
ground position against an invading army
from the West while the Alborz can serve
as a barrier to invasion from the north
and even if an enemy overcomes those
they'd still have to fight across the
mountains and valleys of the heartland
and take each city one by one however
the mountains can also serve to box an
Iranian Empire inside and limit
their ability to project power beyond
them geography always plays a major role
in warfare in a 1980 Iraq launched an
all-out invasion into Iran with the goal
of annexing the oil-rich western
province of Khuzestan and hopefully
overthrowing the Iranian regime and
halting the Iranian revolutions
influence from spreading any further
west let's go back to a topographic map
of what the iran-iraq border looks like
in the first couple years of the war
Iraq made limited progress into
occupying Khuzestan here largely because
it's just an extension of the eluvian
plain in Iraq itself and is an easy flat
surface for mobilized units and troops
to travel across Kurdistan is the only
province of Iran that's located
primarily west of the Zagros but Iraq
made only small progress invading
further up north into the Zagros because
of the difficulty in attacking the
Iranian high ground positions in this
way the Zagros protected Iran against
attacks along her entire border Iraq's
invasion was stunted and after two years
the Iranians completely pushed them out
and began their own counter invasion of
Iraq but this was just as difficult for
the Iranians the front line across the
border territory was significantly
closer to the major Iraqi population
centers and military depots in Baghdad
and Basra and they could resupply their
front largely across easy and flat
terrain the Iranians on the other hand
had to supply their front far away from
their major population centers and
depots and from across the other side of
the Zagros as well the Iranian troops
and supplies therefore had to make a
difficult journey across the mountains
in order to reach the frontline and in
combination with a large international
trade embargo the Iranian military
suffered from supply shortages
throughout the war which was a problem
that the Iraqi military simply didn't
have to deal with it's part of the
reason why Iraq with a population only
1/4 the size of
was capable of holding them off in a
stalemate for six entire years before a
white piece was finally signed that
changed no borders and gave no
reparations after half a million dead
historically and in our present time
Persia / Iran has always sought to
expand her influence to the west and
geography largely dictates this despite
the difficulty in crossing the Zagros
Mountains westward expansion is still
just easier for a Persian regime than
any other direction to the east is
Afghanistan a region even more
mountainous and difficult to control in
Iran s while there's also Pakistan a
country with over two-and-a-half times
their population in a nuclear weapons
armed state to boot to the north is
Central Asia a region of the world
dominated by open steppes and deserts
where farming is largely impossible that
historically was dominated by nomadic
tribal peoples instead of settled
civilizations conquering and holding the
area for long from the steppe hordes was
essentially impossible or just not worth
it for any civilization until the advent
of gunpowder and modern armies and today
the entire area is still largely under
the influence of Russia
so no realistic expansion in that
direction either that essentially leaves
the West and in times of regional
weakness or instability Persia has
always exploited this Geographic
opportunity look at the Imperial borders
of the ancient a committed Empire the
sasanian empire the Safavid Empire and
the afsharid Empire and you'll begin to
recognize the same patterns while Persia
has occasionally expanded to the east
the north and the south those directions
have never been as great as their
westward expansion has and that's
because once the Persian armies have
crossed over the Zagros and if there's
no other civilization strong enough to
immediately stop them in Iraq there's
not much in their way geographically
from there all the way to Egypt but
Persia doesn't necessarily seek out
conquest and expansion just an order to
dominate Persia has been invaded and
attacked and conquered multiple times
steering her history from every
direction partially as a consequence of
being at the crossroad
the world between Europe Africa and Asia
Greeks Arabs Mongols and Turks have all
taken their turns for invasions across
history and this is letter wrong to seek
out a policy of expanding her territory
in order to protect her core area this
partially explains why today Iran still
seeks influence in countries like Syria
Lebanon and Iraq to the west of her
borders however it's not all bad
one way that Iran received a buff to her
geography stats came in the 20th century
with the discovery of massive oil fields
10% of all the world's proven oil
reserves and 15% of its gas reserves are
located right here in the southwestern
corner of the country which has given
tremendous wealth to the state well this
could be easily seen as a geographic
blessing it's also sort of a
double-edged sword the Iranian economy
these days is heavily reliant on oil and
gas in 2012 for example roughly 80% of
iran's public revenue was made up
exclusively of oil exports this
essentially means that today the most
critically valuable territory that Iran
possesses is Kyrgyzstan where the
majority of this oil and gas is
extracted from but Kuja Stan is also the
most critically vulnerable region of
Iran geographically as mentioned
previously kuta stan and the oil fields
are located almost entirely west of the
protection of the Zagros Mountains on a
plane connecting to a rock meaning that
it is certainly the easiest Iranian
province to occupy in the event of a war
but there's more than just that perhaps
the biggest weakness in all of Iran's
geography is located just to the south
here the Strait of Hormuz Persian
empires have always spent strong land
powers but have never really been strong
naval powers and this is largely the
reason why most of Iran's coastline is
located here in the Persian Gulf
including the entire coast of Kyrgyzstan
where most of Iran's oil and gas is
extracted the only way for warships or
commercial ships to get out of the
Persian Gulf is through this narrow
choke point
that's only 21 miles wide at its narrow
points some countries like the United
Kingdom have historically been difficult
to blockade because an enemy Navy would
have to surround the entire island with
ships to prevent any resources from
leaking through but all an enemy has to
do to blockade the majority of Iran is
to block that 21 mile wide opening and
nothing can get in or out across the
ocean and it's even worse than that
today one third of the entire global
supply of liquefied natural gas and 25
percent of the global supply of oil
passes through this 21 mile wide strait
in theory since Iran controls the entire
northern coastline they could blockade
or mine the Strait themselves and cut
the entire world off from massive
amounts of critical resources such an
action would be catastrophic upon the
global economy and likely trigger an
immediate response the Strait of Hormuz
is therefore the most important feature
of Iran's geographic limitations if Iran
were to ever lose control of this 21
mile stretch of area all would be lost
of course humans can do a lot to make a
bad Geographic starting point a little
better you can spend your peasants tax
dollars on things like forts or castles
and weak or strategic areas to buff them
up so if you want to see what it
actually takes to build a castle you
should watch how to build a castle next
on curiosity stream a glorious hour-long
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civilizations in the Middle Ages
constructed castles and defensive
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