What it means
جمعیت (jam’iyyat) means “population” or “crowd” in Persian. The word comes from Arabic جَمْعِيَّة (jam’iyya), rooted in the Arabic verb جَمَعَ (jama’a, to gather or assemble). In Persian it has two common uses: when talking about demographics, it refers to the total number of people living in a place, and in everyday speech it describes a large crowd gathered somewhere. A related term is ازدحام (ezdehâm), which specifically means a dense or congested crowd rather than a population count.
How to use it
- جمعیت ایران چقدره؟ (jam’iyyat-e Irân cheghadre?) “What is the population of Iran?”
- جمعیت میدون خیلی زیاد بود. (jam’iyyat-e meydun kheyli ziâd bud.) “The crowd in the square was very large.”
- جمعیت شهر تهران داره زیاد میشه. (jam’iyyat-e shahr-e Tehrân dâre ziâd mishe.) “The population of the city of Tehran is growing.”
- اون محله جمعیت کمیه. (un mahalle jam’iyyat kamiye.) “That neighbourhood has a small population.”
Cultural note
Iran has undergone dramatic demographic shifts since the 1979 revolution. A baby boom in the 1980s pushed the population well past 80 million, prompting the government to introduce a family planning programme in the 1990s that sharply reduced birth rates. More recently, concern about an ageing جمعیت has led authorities to reverse course and encourage higher birth rates. The word appears regularly in news, census reports, and political speeches.