Geography:
Southern Azerbaijan is a region in northwest Iran which lies south of Armenia and the Republic of Azerbaijan. The region’s most important cities and provinces include Ardabil, which is located in the north-east of Iran and has great geographical and environmental diversity such as mountains, valleys, forests, lakes and marshlands.

Hamadan is a highland province that is characterised by vast mountains, green slopes, farmlands, pastures, snow capped peaks and fertile valleys. Tabriz is a historic city, that is the political and administrative capital of the province and it is significant due to its natural attractions such as its river-sides, mineral and natural water springs, streams, peaks and heights and caves. Qazvin acts as a bridge connecting Teheran to the northern and western regions as well as to both European and Caucasian countries. The temperatures in Southern Azerbaijan also vary, for example, in the north, winters are generally cold and snowy and summers are moderate while the plain regions experience winters that are relatively cold and summers that are relatively warm. Zanjan is located in the central part of north-west Iran and it is characterised by mountainous areas that encompass the northern regions of the Zanjan township, the remaining parts of the province are characterised by plains. Orumieh is a province that is located in the north-west of Iran. The province is a mountainous area with a diverse and vast topography. A long mountain range is situated on the western part of the province which forms the international border with Iraq and Turkey. Melted snow that originates from the mountains create many streams that flow through the various valleys making them fertile.

People:
Population
Southern Azerbaijan is populated by the Shi’a Muslim, Azerbaijani Turks. They speak a Turkic language that is similar to Turkish and Iraqi Turkmen. It is extremely difficult to give an estimate population number since it has been reported that the Iranian authorities have tampered with the statistics. The population of Azerbaijani descent in Iran is up to 30 million people. There are large communities of Azerbaijani Turks living abroad, not only in Azerbaijan, but in countries such as Turkey, Russia, Georgia, U.S.A, Kazakhstan, Germany, Ukraine and Canada.

Language
The Azerbaijanis speak Azerbaijani, which originates from the Turkic grouping of languages that include Turkmen and the Turkish spoken by the Turkomans of Iraq and the Qashqai.

Culture and religion
The majority of Azerbaijanis in Iran are Shi'a Muslims.

Azerbaijanis use music and dance to express their cultural identity. A traditional style of dance is the folk dances reminiscent of group dances that are performed in southeastern Europe. Individual dances are also performed that entail either a man or a woman dancing alone and engaging in complex, sequenced steps and using various hand movements. Music is also an important form of self expression for the Azerbaijani people who sing dastans (ballads) and mughams (Azerbaijani classical music) and play instruments such as the saz, the duduk, the kamancha and the dhol.

Influential Azerbaijanis that have helped establish and strengthen the Azerbaijani identity and culture include great men such as Mahammed Fizuli, a poet and great thinker, Nasimi, who influenced Turkish and Armenian literature, Mirza Fatali Akhundzade, a poet, thinker and writer in Turkish, Arabic and Farsi, Nizami Ganjavi, poet and thinker who knew Turkish, Arabic, Persian and Greek as well as ancient Greek history and philosophy, astronomy, medicine and geometry. Bahmanya Azerbaijani, was an Azerbaijani philosopher, representative of East Peripateism and a student and follower of the great Ibn Sina. He was an Azerbaijani writer, materialist philosopher, public figure and founder of Azerbaijani dramatic art.

History
Although the Azerbaijani khanates had been under the rule of The Gajar Countries' Union "Mamalek-e-Mahrusa-ye-Gajar" they soon established their reign of the State of Gajar. Rulers who were Azerbaijani and representatives of the Azerbaijani people were the only men who could claim the throne of the State of Gajar. However, quarrels occurred between the State of Gajar and Tsarist Russia which lead to the collapse of the Gajar State and the division of Azerbaijan. Prior to the Russians arrival, the area of Azerbaijan was 410 000 sq km.

The Azerbaijani borders had stretched from the Darband Iron Gates to the Province of Hamadan. The total area of Northern Azerbaijan, during Russian occupation, decreased to 130.000 sq km. As a result of the "territorial reforms" implemented by Russia, Northern Azerbaijan had been weakened and made smaller, in 1918; this downsized territory became the Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan.

Southern Azerbaijan
When the Gajar State officially collapsed in 1925, Southern Azerbaijan was annexed by Iran. After 1925 the Azerbaijani East was incorporated in West Azerbaijan and there was a massive move of non-Azerbaijanis to the cities of Gazvin and Hamadan where 37% of the population were of Azerbaijani descent. After the Islamic Republic was founded, this policy had stopped; however, it was continued immediately after the Iran-Iraq War. Gazvin and Ardabil became two separate provinces and Astara city, of the Ardabil province of Azerbaijan was ceded to the province of Gilan.

Many immigrants from Southern Azerbaijani territory moved to other parts of Iran such as Teheran. At present, nearly 8 million Southern Azerbaijanis live outside Southern Azerbaijan, where more than a million of them are political immigrants, living in Europe and America. A million of them live in southern Iran while 6 million live in the city of Tehran.

The civil struggle for the restoration of the national rights of the Southern Azerbaijani Turks including the Tehran Turks is still continuing.

Organizations:
SANAM (Southern Azerbaijan National Awakening Movement) was founded by professor Chehraganli in 1995, who started the movement in order to strengthen the national consciousness of the Azerbaijani Turk and to pursue the struggle for Azerbaijani rights.

SANAM, resting its case on the principles of International Law, is fighting for the restoration of the right of "determining its own destiny" of Southern Azerbaijan. SANAM is against every kind of violence and prefers the peaceful political struggle methods.

SANAM refers to International Law and its principles in striving for the restoration of Southern Azerbaijan and it is against any kind of violence, preferring to use peaceful methods. SANAM wishes to acquire self-determination for Southern Azerbaijan, which is an undeniable right, established by International Law. SANAM would be willing to consider acquiring state status under a con-federal, secular and democratic government, that is willingly established by the various peoples and ethnicities that compose the population of Southern Azerbaijan.

Statistics:
Population: 30 million
Religion: Shi'a Muslim
Language: Azerbaijani turkish
Website: http://www.gamoh.biz/