It is bordered by the Caspian Sea on the north, Turkey and Iraq on the west, the Persian Gulf on the south and Afghanistan and Pakistan to the east. Iran has an arid, desert climate because the country gets relatively little rainfall. Winters are cold and snowy in the north and milder in the south. Summers are very hot in the south, slightly milder in the north. Iran is home to about 48 million people, of whom 45.6 million are Iranian citizens.
Refugees come to Iran from Afghanistan and Iraq.
Tehran is the capital and the country's largest city, with about 6 million people. Mashhad is the only other city with more than a million people. Other large cities are Esfahan, Tabriz, and Shiraz. Persian is the country 's official language and the principal language of most of the country's citizens. The Kurds speak a variety of closely related dialects, which in Iran are collectively called Kirmanji.