TEHERAN or Τεηκαν, a large city of Persia, and during the last two reigns the residence of the sovereign, and hence considered to be the capital of the empire. It is situated on a very low tract of ground, near to the foot of the Elburz Mountains, in the province of Ajem. It is between four and five miles in circumference, and is surrounded by a strong wall, flanked by numerous towers and a broad dry ditch, with a glacis between it and the wall. It has, according to Sir R. K. Porter, four gates, though Morier says six. They are inlaid with coloured bricks, and with figures of tigers and other animals in rude mosaic. The streets, like those of all the other Persian towns, are narrow, and full of mud or dust according as the season is wet or dry. The plan in most of the eastern towns seems to have been to compress a numerous population within a small space; and hence the narrow streets and wretched alleys of which they consist, the heat, the crowd, and odious smell, which are fully as obnoxious to a European as the solar rays, against which the narrowness of the streets is supposed to be a defence. There is also another inconvenience, that when a khan or great personage goes out on horseback, as is generally the case, with a train of thirty or forty ill-appointed followers on foot, and when, besides, loaded camels, mules, asses, and not unfrequently one or two of the royal elephants, happen, as they often do, to be passing, they completely jam up the streets, to the evident hazard of life and limbs both to man and beast. Teheran is about the size of Shiraz. In summer, when the king quits it in order to pitch his tent in the plains of Sultania or Unjan, and when most of the inhabitants follow the royal camp, no more than 10,000 are left in the city; while in winter it contains between 60,000 and 70,000. The public edifices are not so numerous as in Shiraz; and as the city itself is built of bricks baked in the sun, it has a mud-like appearance. Of the mosques, the principal is the Mesjid, a structure not yet finished. There are six others, small and insignificant, and three or four colleges. The caravanserais are said to amount to 150, and there are 150 hummums or baths. There are two maidans or squares, one in the town, the other within the ark, a square fortified palace, which contains all the establishments of the king, is surrounded by a wall and ditch, and is entered by two gates. Half a century back, Teheran, the present metropolis of Persia, would hardly have been thought a town of sufficient importance for the capital of a province. It continued an obscure spot until Aga Mahommed Khan, uncle to the present shah, selected it for his residence. It had been destroyed by the Afghans at the beginning of the century, and afterwards rebuilt by Kurreen Khan: it was now improved by Mahommed Khan, and still further enlarged and embellished by his successor. As a central point of general surveillance for the safety of the empire, between the provinces to the north-west, which border on Georgia, and those to the east, which are subject to invasions from the Toorkomans, and their restless allies of Afghanistan, it is well chosen; but it is far from being a pleasant residence, being situated among swamps occasioned by the numerous spring torrents pouring from the adjacent heights, and saturating the low grounds about the town, from which the summer’s sun exhales vapour and damp, so as to render this the most unhealthy season of the year. But the aspect of the place is far from disagreeable. The very humidity of the soil produces early verdure, and clothes the gardens with a more abundant shade; while the ranges of the Elburz Mountains stretch eastward behind the town, and in a direct line northward towers the peak of Demewand. Teheran is not known as one of the ancient cities of Persia. The first notices of its existence are in the fourteenth century. A Persian writer of that period remarks it as a large village, with productive gardens, in the vicinity of the city of Rey; and mentions that the inhabitants had their dwellings under ground, to avoid the excessive heats of summer, and also the attacks of their predatory neighbours. Teheran, according to observations of British officers lately resident in the city, is in Long. 50. 52. E. Lat. 35. 37. N.