Nearly 12 Million people live in Tehran Bozorg in contrast to two hundred thousand in 1920. Tehran is immense and proliferates like a coral reef, but in an orderly manner. Nine-tenths of the built up area is in square blocks with absolutely straight boulevards. The visitor who has been away for a while can no longer find the way around the city. New roads link the western part of the city to the northern quarters. Towering buildings have been erected right and left. Large stores, super-markets, self-service shops have been opened, public buildings, government departments and monuments have been built and an array of giant cranes show the development fever.
Tehran is pleasant, it derives its originality from its dry climate, always cool in the evening, its pure sky, the nearness of the mountains, its numerous parks and gardens where flowers blossom throughout the year, the alleys of young plan-trees in the avenues or even smaller streets, the water which runs down from the upper city along deep and wide gutters which look like small rivers during spring.