Rural Migration in Fars (1961-1976)

Migration from rural to urban areas, as the dominant form of migration in Iran, has two aspects; One aspect is the natural conditions that lead to the migration of excess population or the so-called overflow of the rural population, the other aspect is due to government policies and the implementation of incomplete reforms in the villages, such as land reform. The collapse of traditional production methods in Iranian society, which culminated in land reform in the 1961s, can be considered as a turning point in accelerating the process of internal rural-urban migration and the growth of urbanization in the country. In this research, an attempt is made to investigate the conditions that accelerated the process of rural migration in Persia in the sixties and seventies. The method of the present research is descriptive-analytical and based on historical documents and sources. The most important event taken by the government in the early 1961s to improve the social life of the villages was land reform. According to the findings of the study in Fars after the land reform, there were many conflicts over cropping patterns and the type of land and water division. The lands of Persia were different in different parts of the province. In most areas, farmers owned land; But with the lack of water, they practically did not have much use for their land. On the other hand, successive droughts were one of the major problems in this province. In addition to these conditions, some government projects (construction of dams and formation of agricultural joint stock companies) also worsened the situation, which resulted in the formation of large-scale rural migration and urban growth in the province.