Iranian Australians or Persian Australians are Australian citizens who are of Iranian ancestry or who hold

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

ian

citizenship Citizenship is a membership and allegiance to a sovereign state. Though citizenship is often conflated with nationality in today's English-speaking world, international law does not usually use the term ''citizenship'' to refer to nationalit ...

Terminology

Iranian-Australian is used interchangeably with Persian-Australian, partly due to the fact that, in the

Western world The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to various nations and state (polity), states in Western Europe, Northern America, and Australasia; with some debate as to whether those in Eastern Europe and Latin America also const ...

was known as "Persia". On the

Nowruz Nowruz (, , () , () , () , () , Kurdish language, Kurdish: () , () , () , () , , , , () , , ) is the Iranian or Persian New Year. Historically, it has been observed by Iranian peoples, but is now celebrated by many ...

of 1935, Reza Shah Pahlavi asked foreign delegates to use the term Iran, the

endonym An endonym (also known as autonym ) is a common, name for a group of people, individual person, geographical place, language, or dialect, meaning that it is used inside a particular group or linguistic community to identify or designate them ...

of the country used since the

Sasanian Empire The Sasanian Empire (), officially Eranshahr ( , "Empire of the Iranian peoples, Iranians"), was an List of monarchs of Iran, Iranian empire that was founded and ruled by the House of Sasan from 224 to 651. Enduring for over four centuries, th ...

, in formal correspondence. Since then the use of the word "Iran" has become more common in the Western countries. This also changed the usage of the terms for Iranian nationality, and the common adjective for citizens of Iran changed from "Persian" to "Iranian". In 1959, the government of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, Reza Shah Pahlavi's son, announced that both "Persia" and "Iran" could officially be used interchangeably. However the issue is still debated today. Majd, Hooman, ''The Ayatollah Begs to Differ: The Paradox of Modern Iran'', by Hooman Majd,

Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the followin ...

, 23 September 2008, , 9780385528429. p
161
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History

The first known Iranian immigrant to Australia was Hamed Mortis () who was naturalised in New South Wales (NSW) on 20 October 1883. The only other early Iranian immigrant to NSW was Mohamad Ameen Khan () who was naturalised on 29 June 1899. Few Iranians migrated to Victoria in the nineteenth century, with only seven recorded in the 1891 census. From 1950 to 1977, the first wave of immigration from Iran to Australia occurred, but it was relatively insignificant in terms of the number of immigrants. Annually, few thousand tourists entered Australia which only a few hundreds were immigrants during this period, mostly university students who decided to stay. The vast majority of Iran's emigrants left their homeland just after the 1979 Islamic revolution which was the end of 2500 years of monarchy. For the period 1978–1980, the average number of Iranians entering Australia as immigrants annually increased to more than 5,000. From the period 1980–1988, there was a strong trend of emigration to Australia. Since 2000, there has been a wave of Iranian migration to Australia, especially engineers and doctors, through skilled migration program. Iranians speak Persian and also Azerbaijani Turkish, Kurdish, and some other Persian languages and dialects are spoken in different regions of Iran. They practice the Iranian culture, which includes

. Along religious lines, both

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

and non-Muslim Iranians reside in Australia. Non-Muslim Iranians include Iranian Christians (mainly

Armenian Armenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia * Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent ** Armenian diaspora, Armenian communities around the ...

and Assyrian), Iranian Baháʼís, Iranian

Mandaeans Mandaeans (Mandaic language, Mandaic: ࡌࡀࡍࡃࡀࡉࡉࡀ) ( ), also known as Mandaean Sabians ( ) or simply as Sabians ( ), are an ethnoreligious group who are followers of Mandaeism. They believe that John the Baptist was the final and ...

, Iranian

Jews Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

and Iranian Zoroastrians. The Bureau of Statistics reports that at the 2011 census the major religious affiliations amongst Iran-born were Islam (12 686) and Baháʼí (6269). Of the Iran-born, 18.4 per cent stated 'No Religion', which was lower than that of the total Australian population (22.3 per cent), and 9.4 per cent did not state a religion.

Iranian Australian census

In 1991,

Australian Bureau of Statistics The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) is an List of Australian Government entities, Australian Government agency that collects and analyses statistics on economic, population, Natural environment, environmental, and social issues to advi ...

(ABS) figures revealed an Iranian population of 12,914. In 2004, 18,798 people in Australia claim to be of Iranian ancestry.

Notable people

* Soheil Abedian, founder and CEO of Sunland Group * Arman Abrahimzadeh, domestic violence campaigner * Shervin Adeli,

futsal Futsal is a variant of association football played between two teams of five players each on a court smaller than a football pitch. Its rules are based on the Laws of the Game (association football), Laws of the Game of association football, and i ...

player * Hoda Afshar, artist * Mojean Aria, actor * Daniel Arzani, footballer * Sam Bashiry, entrepreneur * Salah Choheili, Mandaean priest * Donya Dadrasan, singer * Sam Dastyari, senator for NSW * Michael Denkha, actor * Nabil Elderkin (mother is Iranian), film and music video director * Kamran Eshraghian, engineer * Alireza Faghani, football referee * Amir Farid, pianist * Salme Geransar, actress * Zarah Ghahramani, writer * Anise K, songwriter * Shokufeh Kavani, painter * Beejan Land, actor * Joey Mead King, model, VJ, and TV and events host (Iranian father) * Ashkan Mokhtarian, MMA fighter * Granaz Moussavi, poet, film maker * Anoushiravan Nourian, boxer * Rita Panahi, opinion columnist * Phoenix Raei, actor * Ali Pahlavan, pop singer * Tina Rahimi, boxer * Nabi Saleh, founder of Gloria Jean's Coffees * Hassan Shahsavan, Greco-Roman wrestler * Farzad Tarash, freestyle wrestler * Hossein Valamanesh, artist

References

{{Ethnic groups in Australia Ethnic groups in Australia Iranian diaspora in Australia

Terminology

History

Iranian Australian census

Notable people

See also

References