Iran is home to one of the richest art heritages and handicrafts in world history and distinguished in many disciplines, including architecture, painting, weaving, pottery, calligraphy, metalworking and stone masonry. Persians were among the first to use mathematics, geometry, and astronomy in architecture and also have extraordinary skills in making massive domes which can be seen frequently in the structure of bazaars and mosques.

There are a wide variety of different cultural activities going on in Iran and particularly in the Capital, Tehran, almost everyday. The more costly parts of these activities are sponsored and financed by the government while the private sector's contribution to cultural activities are also remarkable. For instance, the government owns most of the theater halls while music tapes, magazines and books are mostly produced by private sector.

Iranian architecture or Persian architecture is the architecture of Greater Iran that has a continuous history from at least 5000 BCE to the present, with characteristic examples distributed over a vast area from Syria to North India and the borders of China, from the Caucasus to Zanzibar. Persian buildings vary from peasant huts to tea houses, and garden pavilions to "some of the most majestic structures the world has ever seen".

Iran is a huge country of 1,648,000 square Kilometers with varying ecosystems. From the tropical Caspian shore with its rice and tea plantations, to the oilfields and sugar cane fields of Khuzestan; from the orchards and wheat fields of the province of Azerbaijan, to the deserts of Kavir and Lut with their oasis towns; from the central arid plateau, to the snowcapped Zagros and Alburz mountains – Iran is a land of extraordinary contrasts.