Greater Tehran in the context of "Tehran County"

Tehran is the capital and largest city of Iran. It is also the capital of Tehran province and the administrative center for Tehran County and its Central District. With a population of around 9 million in the city, and 15 million in the metropolitan area, Tehran is the most populous city in Iran and West Asia, the second largest metropolitan area in the Middle East after Cairo, and the 24th-most-populous metropolitan area in the world. Greater Tehran includes several municipalities, including but not limited to Karaj, Eslamshahr, Shahriar, Qods, Malard, Golestan, Pakdasht, Qarchak, Nasimshahr, Parand, Pardis, Andisheh and Fardis.

In classical antiquity, part of the territory of present-day Tehran was controlled by Rhages/Rey/Ray). Modern Ray was absorbed into the metropolitan area of Greater Tehran. Tehran was 1st chosen as the capital of Iran in 1786 by Agha Mohammad Khan of the Qajar dynasty, because of its proximity to Iran's territories in the Caucasus—which were contested in the Russo-Iranian Wars—and to avoid the vying factions of prior ruling Iranian dynasties; the capital of Iran had been moved several times throughout its long history, with Tehran becoming the 32nd. Under (1848-1896), Tehran witnessed Iran's first institute of higher learning, bank, railway line, and museum. Large-scale construction works began in the 1920s, and Tehran became a destination for mass migrations from all over Iran especially in the 20th century.

Shahr-e Ray (Persian: شهر ری) (Nick name: Mother of Tehran) is the capital of Ray County, Tehran province, Iran. Formerly a distinct city, it has now been absorbed into the metropolitan area of Greater Tehran as the 20th district of municipal Tehran, the capital city of the country.

In historical sources also known as Rhages (/ˈreɪdʒiːz/), Rhagae, and Arsacia, Ray is the oldest existing city in Tehran province. In the classical era, it was a prominent city belonging to Media, the political and cultural base of the Medes. Ancient Persian inscriptions and the Avesta (Zoroastrian scriptures), among other sources, attest to the importance of ancient Ray. Ray is mentioned several times in the Apocrypha. It is also shown on the fourth-century Peutinger Map.

On 3 June 1989, at 22:20 IRST, Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder and first supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI), died in Jamaran, Greater Tehran, aged 89 after spending eleven days at a private hospital, near his residency, after suffering five heart attacks in ten days. Sources put his age at 89, and list the cause of death as bleeding in the digestive system. As a mark of respect, Iran's government ordered all schools to be closed on Sunday and declared 40 days of mourning and said schools would be closed for five days. Pakistan declared ten days of national mourning, Syria announced seven days of mourning, Afghanistan, Lebanon, and India announced three days of mourning. Iraq also expressed condolences.

Khomeini was given a state funeral and buried at the Behesht-e Zahra (The Paradise of Zahra) cemetery in south Tehran. It was estimated that around 10 million people participated in his funeral, one-sixth of the population of Iran, which is the largest proportion of a population ever to attend a funeral procession and also one of the largest gatherings in human history.