Abdolkarim Hosseinzadeh, Iran’s Vice President for Rural Development and Deprived Regions, stated that out of the country’s 69,000 villages, only 38,000 remain inhabited, while 31,000 have been abandoned.
At a national conference of the Housing Foundation on Monday, November 4, Hosseinzadeh noted that in 1976, approximately 70% of Iran’s population lived in rural areas, while 30% resided in cities. This ratio has now reversed as the country faces “widespread” rural-to-urban migration.
World Bank data shows that the proportion of Iran’s rural population dropped from 66% in 1961 to 51% in 1978, and this downward trend has continued since the 1979 Revolution, reaching 23% last year.
The Vice President added that a range of factors—including job shortages, declining quality of life, social changes, income insufficiencies, and climate change—has posed serious challenges to Iran’s rural areas.
The expectation of retaining rural populations persists even as rural inflation nearly matches urban inflation. Additionally, widespread unemployment, water crises, lack of amenities, and the government’s limited support for farmers have further strained rural households.
For example, estimates by the Statistical Center of Iran indicate that only 40% of the rural population is employed, and 11.5% of these individuals work fewer than 44 hours a week, which is considered underemployment.
In contrast, the underemployment rate among urban residents is 6.7%.
Another notable point is that 43% of the rural population works in agriculture—a sector increasingly strained by water shortages and lack of government support.
Last summer, Ali Akbar Mehrabian, the Minister of Energy, reported that 10,000 villages in the country lack access to drinking water, meaning more than a quarter of Iran’s villages do not have drinking water.
Simultaneously, Majid Aghazadeh, Engineering Deputy of the state-owned Water and Wastewater Company, reported a water crisis in 27,000 villages across Iran, affecting a population of over 10 million.
In total, more than 70% of the country’s villages are facing a water crisis.
