The council is composed of twenty one members elected on a plurality-at-large voting basis for four-year terms.

Persian Constitutional Revolution passed a law on local governance known as "Ghanoon-e Baladieh".

The second and third articles of the law, on "anjoman-e baladieh", or the city council, provide a detailed outline on issues such as the role of the councils in the city, the members' qualifications, the election process, and the requirements to be entitled to vote.

Baladieh, or the modern municipality in Iran was established in 1910, to cope with the growing need for the transformation of Tehran's city structures.

[2] After the First World War, Reza Shah, the founder of the Pahlavi dynasty, immediately suspended the "Ghanoon-e Baladieh" of 1907 and the decentralized and autonomous city councils were replaced by centralist/sectoralist approaches of governance and planning.