The first known Iranian immigrant to UK who became a British citizen was
Assadour Karabegof (), who was naturalised on 20 February 1862. Also, there was another Iranian called
Arsen Oskian Arsenian () who was naturalised on 30 May 1868. The vast majority of Iranians in the UK arrived after the
Iranian Revolution of 1979. In the following five years, an estimated 8,000 Iranian asylum seekers arrived in the country. The 1981 census showed 28,617 persons born in Iran (18,132 men, 10,485 women). Iranians were not separately distinguished in the 1991 census. In the 2011 census, 79,985 Iranian-born people were recorded in England, 1,695 in Wales, 2,773 in Scotland and 282 in Northern Ireland. The
Office for National Statistics estimates that, in 2017, 70,000 Iranian-born people were living in the UK. In 2004, the Iranian embassy in London estimated that as many as 75,000 Iranians might reside in the country. Most adults are themselves immigrants; the
second generation are quite young, and so there are relatively few adults of Iranian background born and raised in the UK. In the six-year period between 2018 and 2023, 21,565 Iranian nationals entered the United Kingdom by
crossing the English Channel using small boats – the most common nationality of all small boat arrivals. ==Religion==