Turkey has long been a fertile field for social scientists (in the broadest sense of the term) and for commentators on the socio-political scene. Travelogues and analyses of the society by westerners or the Ottoman Empire include such well-known authors as Ubicini, Jorga, Vamberi, Engelhardt, Mortmann, Zinkeisen and Hammer-Purgstall. As western penetration into the area increased in the 19th and early 20th centuries there emerged numerous accounts of Turkish life and public affairs by diplomats (e.g., Sir Edwin Pears, Turkey and Its People, 1912), educators and missionaries (e.g., Caleb Gates, Not to Me Only, 1940), soldiers (e.g., Liman von Sanders, Five Years in Turkey, 1928). By 1908, their ranks were augmented by a few Turks such as Ahmet Emin Yalman and Halide Edib. But it was only with the great reforms of AtatUrk that western social scientists began to come to Turkey in any significant numbers, and not until after World War II did modern Turkish studies come into full flower both in terms of quality and quantity. In the last two decades or so there has emerged a very considerable volume of studies by both Turks and others, in Turkish as well as German, French and primarily English. American social scientists have in recent years begun to dominate the field which earlier had been largely the province of Europeans.

The current state of mapping for the Middle East has been conditioned by the particular needs of indigenous countries, by foreign national and private interests, by the demands of the Western public, and by the research interests of scholars. Middle Eastern countries themselves require maps for the purposes of administration and national development and thereby provide the main thrust for the production of maps by national and international agencies. Foreign states and companies having strategic or economic interests in the region, past or present, have also produced maps. The West’s long concern with the origins and evolution of its civilization has fostered efforts in historical cartography. Not the least have been the research interests of scholars, which have led to the drawing of maps to suit their sometimes peculiar needs.

Geography as a discipline allows several interpretations of area materials. The following outline does not claim to be exhaustive, but I feel that it does cover the major approaches to teaching a course entitled: The Geography of the Middle East. This syllabus incorporates materials suggested in other teachers’ course outlines in addition to my own, but the final interpretation — with its strengths and weaknesses — is my responsibility.

The appearance of new research facilities, as the spread of the very notion of modern research, is a recent development in Iranian society. In contrast with the social sciences and humanities, the physical sciences probably can show more extensive research facilities, as evidenced by the visible array of modern facilities ranging from spectrophotometers, chromatographic units, polarizing microscopes to electronic microscopes in addition to a growing number of libraries and laboratories. This article, however, is not concerned with research facilities in the physical sciences, even if some of these are of indirect interest to researchers in the social sciences. Nor will this article treat certain other facilities which may be of more direct interest to some social scientists, such as industrial research laboratories and standard testing laboratories. The scope of this article is limited to research facilities in the social sciences and humanities, but even in this limited area it is merely a preliminary study. This article will attempt (1) to identify the major research facilities in the social sciences and humanities; (2) to indicate broadly the overall research atmosphere in Iran today; and (3) to note a few practical points, hopefully useful to interested researchers.