Explaining Iran's Geographical Development Strategy: The Necessity of Transitioning from Land-Based to Maritime-Oriented Development

Despite Iran's extensive maritime potential, the country's development geography strategy has remained predominantly land-oriented. This study aims to explain Iran's development geography strategy and examine the necessity of transitioning from a land-oriented to a maritime-oriented development model. The research adopted a descriptive–analytical design with an exploratory mixed-methods approach. Data were collected through documentary sources, 40 semi-structured interviews with experts, and a researcher-developed questionnaire. Qualitative data were analyzed using MAXQDA 2022, while quantitative data were examined using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test and Spearman's rank correlation coefficient. The findings indicate that, from the experts' perspective, a land-oriented development strategy is positively and significantly associated with environmental challenges, the weakening of the maritime economy, unbalanced population distribution, increased spatial inequality, and a decline in Iran's geopolitical capacity. Furthermore, strong positive correlations were found between land-oriented development and coastal underdevelopment (ρ = 0.678), as well as between land-oriented development and the decline in geopolitical capacity (ρ = 0.721). In contrast, the maritime-oriented development model, with a mean score of 4.58 out of 5, was evaluated by the experts as an effective approach for promoting coastal development, strengthening the maritime economy, enhancing spatial justice, advancing national development, and expanding international trade. Overall, the findings suggest that a maritime-oriented development strategy can provide a foundation for restructuring Iran's spatial development framework, making more effective use of the country's maritime capacities, and informing national development policies.