In the beautiful language of Persian, Iran means “Land of the Aryans.”, and it’s a rather dry country too! It receives no more than four inches of rainfall each year, and over half of it has a dessert-like, super-dry and arid climate. With roots as far back as 4000 B.C., it’s considered to be one of the oldest civilisations to still be in existence, if not the old oldest.

Fun facts about Iran aside, it would appear that the country has much more to offer than hot temperatures and some fascinating history. This list of the top 10 beautiful Iranian women shows you the wonders and exotic beauty that the country can offer:

1 – Mahlagha Jaberi

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With over 2.3 million Instagram followers, Mahlagha Jaberi is known for being a “social media star” just as much as she is known for being a model. Born in Isfahan, Iran, she currently lives in San Diego, California, and at just 27 years old, she’s doing pretty well for herself. And, of course, being one of the top 10 beautiful Iranian women certainly helps, we’re sure!

2 – Nazanin Boniadi

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37-year-old Nazanin Boniadi was born in Tehran, Iran, right in the midst of the revolution, and it wasn’t long before her parents moved themselves, along with her, out of the country. They headed for Britain, and it was during her time there that she learned ballet, and of her love for it, and also learned how to play the violin. It wasn’t long before she moved to the United States, but originally hunted out a career in science, rather than in the limelight. Switching lanes didn’t come until 2006, but it was a great move. General Hospital, an Emmy-award winning TV show, cast her as Leyla Mir, and she actually became famous for this part. It was the first time in American daytime TV history that a Middle Eastern character was contracted. Impressive stuff, right? It gets more impressive, as she’s also since starred in Charlie Wilson’s War, Iron Man, and even The Next Three Days. That’s alongside her charity work and activism too. Being a spokesperson for Amnesty International USA (among many other things) must take up an awful lot of her time!

3 – Elnaz Shakerdoust

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33-year-old Iranian actress, Elnaz Shakerdoust, is well known not just for her acting skills, but also with her modelling and designing too. She has a very impressive filmography behind her, earning her nominations not one, but two Iran Cinema Celebration Awards for the “Best Actress in a Supporting Role”.

It was while the Iranian beauty was still in elementary school that she first discovered a love for acting and the arts, and when she later attended Azad University, she received a degree in none other than theatre. She was instantly given the main role in one of Kioumars Pourahamd’s movies (the 2004 hit Ice Flower), and it was within a couple of years from that point that Elnaz found herself almost inundated with movie roles.

4 – Claudia Lynx

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She has over 28,800 followers on Instagram, and close to 100,000 on Facebook, and when you take a little look at Claudia Lynx, it’s not very hard to see why. Very worthy of her place on this list of top 10 beautiful Iranian women, the model and singer have all the characteristics of a typical Persian beauty, with wonderful almond-shaped eyes with dark hair.

5 – Sahar Biniaz

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This 36-year-old beauty was born in Tehran, Iran, but her hometown is Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, with Iranian-Canadian roots. Not just a model, but a beauty queen and actress too, Sahar actually won 2012’s Miss Universe Canada competition, and even found acting fame in the TV show Sanctuary, starring as Kali. The fantasy/sci-fi blend was shown for four seasons, the fifth one being planned and then never coming to fruition.

As well as appearing in the hit Iranian movie, Ambrosia, you may recall seeing this Iranian wonder in 2012 — she had a small role in that. She also popped up in Smallville, and Blue Mountain State too.

6 – Maryam Zakaria

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This beauty was born in Iran, Tehran, to be exact, but she’s actually Swedish-Iranian. Things get a tad more confusing here too because she’s actually a rather famous name in the world of Bollywood movies.

She’s very well known for her role in the 2012 movie, Agent Vinod, and some may recall spotting her in Grand Masti, the comedy for adults too. Not just an actress, of course, Maryam is also a talented dancer, having worked as both a choreographer and a dance teacher, and she even went as far as to establish a school to teach Bollywood dancing. Even more impressively, it was the first Bollywood dancing school in Sweden, which is something to be pretty in awe of.

7 – Aylar Lie

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33-year-old Aylar Lie was born in Tehran, Iran, but she was just two years old when she arrived in Norway, and that’s where she stayed for most of her childhood, brought up by foster parents that were of both Norwegian and Iranian descent.

It was actually the adult kind of movie that Aylar was first known for but soon turned her hand to mainstream modelling, before going ahead to compete in the 2004 Miss Norway pageant. Sadly, because of her past movie career, she was disqualified from the competition.

In fact, her previous movie career seems to have halted life quite considerably for the star, even going as far as preventing her from being able to travel to her home country in order to see her father. She has gone on the record to admit it was a time that she deeply regrets.

Some of you may actually remember this beautiful Iranian star from her music video days. She appeared in a large number of videos for the group Basshunter, including “All I Ever Wanted” in 2008, “Now You’re Gone” in 2007, and “I Miss You”.

8 – Shermine Shahrivar

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This woman has managed to bag some pretty impressive accolades over the years, born in Tehran, Iran, before becoming a beauty pageant winner in Europe. She actually won the 2005 Miss Europe competition, after winning Miss Germany just one year before that. It’s not entirely random, however, as her parents actually moved her from Iran to Germany when she was just a year or so old, explaining the connection between the two places.

Fluent in many languages, including English, French, Persian, and German, she’s got a degree in social sciences too and has also been a long-term model used in American Apparel campaigns. She’s been working with them since 2008.

9 – Nazanin Mandi

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She’s the gorgeous fiancee of singer, songwriter, actor, and record producer, Miguel, but this beautiful Iranian girlie is pretty famous in her own right, with over a million followers on Instagram. She’s a model, beautiful in her own right, with a mix of heritage. With Persian, Native American, Spanish and Mexican in there, you can understand where her exotic good looks have come from. She’s been with her music-mogul man for over a decade, originally meeting him whilst filming the video for his song “Getcha Hands Up” in 2005.

We love a happy ever after love story, don’t you?

10 – Sarah Shahi

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37-year-old Sarah Shahi was actually born in Texas, US, but her father is Iranian, and her mother is Spanish, with an Iranian father. Her real name is Aahoo Jahansouz Shahi, and she’s rather well known for being a cheerleader for the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, and even appeared on the calendar with the squad on the 2000 version. She took the job because she had hoped it would lead the way into acting, and it was clearly a decision that worked well in her favour.

It was in 2000 that her career seemed to really take off, with a number of TV and movie roles, and these have kept steady too. More recently you will have seen Sarah Shahi in Ray Donovan, Person of Interest, and she even had the lead role of Kate Reed in Barely Legal. Add to that Life, Teachers, in which she had the main character part, The L Word, Supernatural, and many more, and you have a very talented actress indeed. That’s before we even begin to talk about the movies, which include I Don’t Know How She Does It in 2011, Rush Hour 3 in 2007, and Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde in 2003. She’s currently filming Hangman, due for release soon. This crime thriller is also said to star Al Pacino, Karl Urban, and Brittany Snow, promising to be rather a good watch.