Iran has all five environmental ecosystems, including coastal-aquatic, mountain, forest, steppe and desert-like which can be found in the interior regions of Iran or its surroundings like the seas. A Desert-like ecosystem cannot be found in the vast area of Europe, which is green and rich in vegetation, resulting in the reduction of diversity of fauna and flora, but thanks to its variety of ecosystems, Iran has many varieties of plant and animal life. The existence of the high mountains in the north, west and centre, of desert-like regions in the centre, east and southwest, of steppe in various regions of centre, northwest, east and south, of forest in north and west and being in a neighbourhood of seas in both north and south lead us to find all main ecosystems of the world. But what makes Iran a four-season land is both the type and combination of the ecosystems. It seems that the desert and desert-like region is in contrast with the mountain ecosystem. Iran is an outstanding and charming combination of these two ecosystems where desert and mountain zones meet. Surprisingly, Iran is also placed at the meeting location of these two contrary world ecosystems, so that an artistic, interesting and unique combination of two opposed but adjacent ecosystems can be seen in a small area, which embodies an interesting example of habitat diversity. Iran is an arid region lain in subtropical panhandle and desert zone of the world, where mountains cross it like a bridge that connects the western mountains of Europe to the high peaks of the Himalayas in Asia. Thus, most Iranian mountains are dry or covered by forests, which are called dry forest, except the mountains in the northern region in which the foothills are carpeted with the Hyrcanian forests. Iran has become a unique and eye-catching collection and the combination of different climates and ecosystems and is famous for being called “the land of four seasons”. The main feature of Iran is “diversity”, since many ecosystems can be found in different regions of Iran, like forest ecosystem, three different types of which are: 1. wet forest, Hyrcanian forests, in the north, 2.dry forest, the Zagros mountain range, in the west, and 3. mangrove forest or Hara forests, on the southern coast of Iran, and steppe ecosystem in mountains and deserts and being positioned between seas with diverse habitats, as a result, biological diversity and species diversity are seen. The four-season characteristic of Iran paves the way to experience, winter tourism in one place and summer tourism simultaneously in another place.
The rest of this article is published in the 2nd number of Gilgamesh international edition
