Iran

Qashqai are a conglomeration of clans of different ethnic origins, mostly Turkic, but also Arab, Kurdish, and Lori. They mainly live in the Iranian provinces of Fars, Khuzestan, Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad Province, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Province, Bushehr and southern Isfahan, especially around the city of Shiraz and Firuzabad in Fars. After assimilation politics since Pahlavi, almost all of them are bilingual, speaking the Qashqai language - which is a member of the Turkic family of languages and which they call Turki - as well as (in formal use) the Persian language. Majority of Qashqai people were originally nomadic pastoralists and some remain so today. The traditional nomadic Qashqai travelled with their flocks each year from the summer highland pastures north of Shiraz roughly 480 km or 300 miles south to the winter pastures on lower (and warmer) lands near the Persian Gulf, to the southwest of Shiraz. The majority, however, have now become partially or wholly sedentary. The trend towards settlement has been increasing markedly since the 1960s.

The Qashqai are made up of a number of tribes and sub-tribes including the Amele, Derre-Shuri/Dere-Shorlu, Kashkyoli, ShishBaluki/Shishbeyli, Farsimadan/Eymur, Qaracha, Rahimli and Safi -Khanli.