The provinces of Iran further subdivided into counties called shahrestan (Persian: شهرستان shahrestān), an area inside an ostan, and consists of a city centre, few bakhsh (Persian: بخش bakhsh) and many villages around them. There are usually a few cities (Persian: شهر shahr) and rural agglomerations (Persian: دهستان dehestān) in each county. Rural agglomerations are a collection of a number of villages. One of the cities of the county is appointed as the capital of the county.
The world Shahrestan comes from the Persian language words: shahr and ostan which means city (or town) and province respectively. The nearest equivalent of Shahrestan in English would be sub-province or county.
Each Shahrestan has a governmental office known as Farmandari which coordinates different events and governmental offices. The Farmandar, or the head of Farmandari, is the governor of the Shahrestan which is the highest governmental authority in the division.
Among provinces of Iran, Fars has the highest number of Shahrestans, with 23, while Semnan and South Khorasan have only 4 Shahrestans each; Qom uniquely has one, being coextensive with its namesake county. Iran had 324 Shahrestans in 2005.
To better understand such subdivisions, the following table may be helpful. Assume that province P is divided into two counties: A and B. County A has 3 districts: Central, X, and Y. The Central district is the district that contains City M, the capital of the county. Each district might contain one or more cities and/or one or more RAs (rural agglomerations). In our example, the Central district contains City M, City N, and RA T composed of the villages V1, V2, V3, and V4, in turn; district X contains City O and RA U; and district Y has no cities and one RA V. The minimal county consists of only one city as the only district, named Central, of course. The county B in the following table is of such type, containing only one city Q.
| Ostan (Province) | Shahrestan (County) | District | City / RA* | Villages |
| P | A | Central | City M (c) | |
| City N | |
| RA T | V1, V2, V3, V4 |
| X | City O | |
| RA U | V5, V6 |
| Y | RA V | V7, V8, V9 |
| B | Central | City Q |
The counties are listed below, by province:
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