Armenia is a country in southwestern Asia. It is a rugged, mountainous land that lies in the Caucasus Mountain region. Yerevan is the country’s capital and largest city.
Present-day Armenia and what is now eastern Turkey make up historic Armenia, the original homeland of the Armenian people. This land was conquered many times in its long history. By 1915, the Turks had driven most Armenians out of western Armenia, which became eastern Turkey.
In 1920, Russian Communists took control of eastern Armenia. This area became part of the Transcaucasian Republic of the Soviet Union in 1922. In 1936, it became a separate Soviet republic called the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic. Armenia remained under Soviet control until 1991, when the people voted to become an independent nation.
Several million Armenians live outside Armenia. The strong national identity of Armenians worldwide helped keep the Armenian culture alive during the years of Soviet control.
Government.
A one-house legislature called the National Assembly makes Armenia’s laws. Members are elected by the people to five-year terms. The assembly elects a president, who serves as head of state. The assembly nominates a prime minister, who is formally appointed by the president. The prime minister serves as head of government. The president also appoints a cabinet on the advice of the prime minister.
Armenia’s main units of local government are provinces (marzer) and communities (hamainkner). Each community has a governing council, whose members are elected by the people. All Armenians 18 years old or older may vote.
Armenia’s highest court is called the Court of Cassation. There are also courts of appeal for criminal, military, civil, and economic cases.
Armenia’s armed forces consist of an army, air force, air defense force, and border guard. All males must serve a two-year term in the armed forces, starting at the age of 18.
People.
About 90 percent of Armenia’s people are Armenians. Kurds and Russians make up the country’s largest minority ethnic groups.
Most of Armenia’s people live in urban areas, in apartment buildings. Many people in smaller cities and villages live in single-family houses. Armenians place great importance on hospitality and on close family ties. Often, more than two generations of a family live together. In the cities, many women hold jobs outside the home, but they still do most of the housework and shopping.
Most people in Armenia speak the Armenian language. This language, distantly related to Greek and Persian, has its own alphabet.
Armenia was the first country in the world to make Christianity its official religion. It did so in the early 300’s. Today, most Armenians belong to the Armenian Church, an independent church that is close to the Eastern Orthodox Churches in its beliefs.
Armenians enjoy such foods as barbecued shish kebab, bean salads, a thin bread called lavash, and dolma (cabbage or grape leaves stuffed with rice and meat). Fruit juices, wine and cognac, and tan (a mixture of water, yogurt, and salt) are popular beverages.
Chess and backgammon are popular forms of recreation in Armenia. Yerevan has many theaters for motion pictures, concerts, and drama. It also has an opera house and a symphony hall.
Armenians enjoy such sports as basketball, tennis, and soccer. During the summer, many Armenians vacation at Lake Sevan—a popular resort area—or at summer homes in the countryside.
Armenia has a rich artistic tradition. Its people have excelled at such crafts as rug weaving and metalwork. The making of decorative carved stone monuments called khatchkars is a purely Armenian art form. Armenian architecture through the ages has produced beautiful stone churches, many with domed roofs. Armenia also has a highly developed tradition of religious music dating to the Middle Ages. Many Armenian craftworkers and artists carry on old traditions today.
Nearly all adults in Armenia can read and write. The government requires children to attend school from the ages of 6 to 16. A student may then attend a technical school or go on to higher education at a university or specialized institute. Armenia has a number of schools of higher education.
Land and climate.
Armenia lies on the Armenian Plateau, a rugged highland that extends from the Little Caucasus Mountains southwest into Turkey. The land is broken by mountains and deep gorges. Armenia has an average altitude of 5,000 feet (1,500 meters) above sea level. The highest mountain ranges stand in central Armenia. The country’s highest point, Mount Aragats, rises 13,419 feet (4,090 meters). The lowest altitudes are in the northeast and southeast.
Much of the Armenian Plateau was formed millions of years ago by volcanic activity. For this reason, most of Armenia is covered with volcanic stones. Faults—fractures in the earth’s rocky outer shell—crisscross the plateau, and earthquakes sometimes occur in Armenia.
Armenia has about 100 mountain lakes. Lake Sevan, in the east, is the largest. It covers about 5 percent of Armenia. The country also has a number of small, fast-flowing rivers and streams. The longest river, the Aras, separates Armenia from Turkey on the west and from Iran on the south. The streams and rivers serve as a source for irrigation and energy. A chain of hydroelectric power stations stands along the Razdan River, between Lake Sevan and Yerevan.
Most of Armenia’s vegetation consists of grasses and shrubs. Some forests of beech, hornbeam, juniper, and oak are found in the northeast and southeast.
The country’s climate is dry, with long cold winters and short hot summers. January temperatures usually range from 10 to 23 °F (–12 to –5 °C) and can fall below –22 °F (–30 °C). July temperatures average about 50 °F (10 °C) in the mountains and about 77 °F (25 °C) elsewhere.
Armenia receives a yearly rainfall of about 8 to 31 inches (20 to 80 centimeters), rising with elevation. The highest peaks are snow-covered all year.
Economy.
Manufacturing and mining are important to Armenia’s economy. The chief industries process diamonds and make chemicals, clothing, computer and electronic products, metal products, processed foods, and tobacco products. Armenia is a leading distiller of a type of brandy called cognac. The country’s main industrial centers include Alaverdi, Kapan, Vanadzor, and Yerevan. Armenian mines produce copper, gold, molybdenum, silver, and zinc. Construction is also a major contributor to Armenia’s economy.
Agriculture employs about a third of the country’s workers. Farm products include barley, potatoes, tomatoes, wheat, and wine grapes. Crop production benefits from Armenia’s many areas of fertile black topsoils called chernozem soils. The Aras River Valley is the chief farming region. Herders raise cattle and sheep on mountain slopes.
Armenia imports more than it exports. The country imports diamonds, food, machinery, natural gas, and petroleum. Leading exports include beverages, copper, diamonds, food, and iron. China, Germany, Iran, Russia, Ukraine, and the United States are among Armenia’s chief trading partners.
Armenia has several railways and an extensive road and highway system. Car ownership is steadily increasing in Armenia. Yerevan has a subway. An international airport also operates at Yerevan.
History.
People lived in historic Armenia by 6000 B.C. The earliest societies in the region were probably tribal groups that lived by farming or raising cattle. In the 800’s B.C., a coalition of several tribes formed the kingdom of Urartu. The Urartians introduced irrigation and built fortresses, palaces, and temples. In the 600’s B.C., ancestors of the Armenians migrated—probably from the west—to the Armenian Plateau. They settled with the native population. In the 500’s B.C., Urartu was conquered by the Medes, a people from what is now Iran.
Soon after Urartu fell to the Medes, the Medes were conquered by the Persians. Armenia was under Persian and then Greek rule for hundreds of years. But it maintained a degree of independence.
King Tigran II, who came to power in 95 B.C., built an independent Armenian empire that reached from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. The Romans defeated Tigran in 55 B.C., and Armenia became part of the Roman Empire.
In the early A.D. 300’s, Armenia became the first nation to adopt Christianity as its state religion. The Armenian alphabet was developed in the early 400’s by an Armenian cleric. In 451, Armenians under Vartan Mamikonian defended their religion against the Persians in the Battle of Avarair.
Arabs conquered Armenia in the 600’s. In 884, an independent Armenian kingdom was established in the northern part of the region. Seljuk Turks conquered Armenia in the mid-1000’s, but Armenians established a new state in Cilicia on the Mediterranean coast. This last Armenian kingdom fell to Mamluk invaders in 1375.
Ottoman rule.
By 1514, the Ottoman Empire had gained control of Armenia. The Ottomans ruled western Armenia until their defeat in World War I in 1918. Persians gained control of eastern Armenia in 1639. They ruled it until 1828, when it was annexed by Russia. During the 1800’s, the growth of nationalism among Turks, Armenians, and other peoples caused conflicts.
During the late 1800’s, Armenians under Ottoman rule suffered increasingly from discrimination, heavy taxation, and armed attacks. From 1894 through 1896, the Ottomans and Kurds, under Sultan Abdulhamit II, carried out a campaign to wipe out Armenians. Hundreds of thousands of Armenians were killed.
Armenia became a battleground between the Ottoman Empire and Russia during World War I (1914-1918). The Ottomans feared that the Armenians would support the Russians. In 1915, the Ottoman government deported the Armenians who were living in western Armenia into the deserts of what is now Syria. About 11/2 million Armenians died from lack of water and starvation or were killed by Ottoman soldiers or Arabs and Kurds. The mass deaths of the Armenians are often referred to as the Armenian Genocide. The term genocide refers to the systematic extermination of an ethnic or racial group.
A large number of survivors of the deportation fled to Russian Armenia. There, in 1918, an Armenian republic was established.
Soviet rule.
Conflicts resurfaced between the Armenian republic and the Ottoman Empire. Armenia’s leaders reluctantly turned to Communist Russia for protection. In December 1920, eastern Armenia became a Communist republic. The Ottomans kept the rest of Armenia. In early 1922, Armenia joined Azerbaijan and Georgia to form the Transcaucasian Republic. This republic was one of four that joined to form the Soviet Union in late 1922. In 1936, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia became separate republics of the Soviet Union.
Joseph Stalin became dictator of the Soviet Union in 1929. He ruled by terror, allowed little expression by nationalist groups, and had many political and cultural leaders killed. After Stalin’s death in 1953, the Soviet Union became more tolerant of national differences. Armenia began to develop into a more modern, European-style society while preserving its ethnic culture.
Before the beginning of Soviet rule in the 1920’s, most Armenians had lived in rural areas and worked as farmers or herders. Also, because the region lies on ancient trade routes, many Armenians had become merchants or traders. Under Soviet rule, Armenia became industrialized. The Soviet government built many factories and modern apartment buildings in Armenia’s cities. Many rural people moved to the cities.
Nagorno-Karabakh, an autonomous oblast (self-governing region) in neighboring Azerbaijan, has long been a source of dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The region is separated from Armenia by a narrow strip of Azerbaijan’s territory. Until the late 1980’s, a large majority of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh were Armenians and a minority were Azerbaijanis. In 1988, large numbers of Armenians demonstrated in Yerevan and other cities, demanding that Nagorno-Karabakh be made part of Armenia. The protests soon led to fighting between Armenians and Azerbaijanis. After the fighting began, about 400,000 Armenians fled to Armenia from Azerbaijan. About 200,000 Azerbaijanis—almost all those who lived in Armenia—fled to Azerbaijan.
On Dec. 7, 1988, a severe earthquake struck Armenia. It killed about 25,000 people and destroyed much property. The destruction caused by the earthquake, along with the large number of refugees from Azerbaijan, led to a severe shortage of housing and jobs in Armenia.
Independence.
In 1990, non-Communists won control of Armenia’s government. The republic’s legislature then declared that Armenia’s laws took precedence over those of the Soviet Union. In early 1991, the Armenian legislature scheduled a referendum on independence to be held in September.
In August 1991, conservative Communist officials failed in an attempt to overthrow the Soviet Union’s president, Mikhail S. Gorbachev. In the upheaval that followed, several republics declared their independence. In September, the Armenian people voted for independence from the Soviet Union. In October, Levon Ter-Petrosyan was elected president. In December, Armenia joined other former republics in an association called the Commonwealth of Independent States. The Soviet Union was formally dissolved on December 25.
During the Soviet period, the government owned most of Armenia’s businesses, factories, and farmland. But in January 1991, the government began a program to introduce more elements of a free-enterprise system. By the time the Soviet Union broke up, the government had sold about three-fourths of the farmland to private owners. Through the 1990’s, the government converted many other businesses to private ownership, and capitalism took root in Armenia.
Recent developments.
In 1994, Armenia and Azerbaijan declared a cease-fire in the fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh. However, sporadic fighting continued, and the conflict over the territory remained unresolved. Ethnic Armenian forces occupied Nagorno-Karabakh and some surrounding Azerbaijani territory.
In 1996, Levon Ter-Petrosyan was reelected president of Armenia. However, many Armenians protested that the election had been marred by fraud. In 1998, Ter-Petrosyan resigned, and Armenia’s prime minister, Robert Kocharian, became acting president. That same year, Kocharian was elected to a term as president. He was reelected in 2003.
In October 1999, gunmen entered the parliament building and assassinated Prime Minister Vazgen Sargsyan and several other government officials. The gunmen were arrested, and Kocharian appointed replacements for the slain officials. In 2008, Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan (no relation to Vazgen Sargsyan) succeeded Kocharian as president. Serzh Sargsyan was reelected in 2013.
In a 2015 referendum, Armenian voters approved constitutional changes that limited the power of the president and increased the power of the prime minister and the National Assembly. In 2018, the National Assembly elected former Prime Minister Armen Sargsyan (no relation to Vazgen or Serzh Sargsyan) president. It then elected outgoing president Serzh Sargsyan as prime minister. Popular protests against Serzh Sargsyan led him to resign and pressured the National Assembly into electing the protest leader Nikol Pashinyan as prime minister. In December, Pashinyan called for elections to the parliament, in which his My Step Alliance won an overwhelming majority in the National Assembly.
In 2020, fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan flared again. Azerbaijan seized some areas in and near Nagorno-Karabakh. Russia arranged a truce allowing Azerbaijan to keep those areas as well as some additional territory. Russian peacekeeping forces remained in the region to monitor and enforce the truce.
Pashinyan called an early election in 2021, and his party won the most parliamentary seats.
In September 2023, Azerbaijan launched a new military operation against the ethnic Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh. The Armenian forces collapsed quickly, and both sides agreed to a cease-fire a day later. The self-declared government of Nagorno-Karabakh announced that it would cease to exist on Jan. 1, 2024, giving Azerbaijan full control of the region. Azerbaijan pledged to respect the rights of Nagorno-Karabakh’s Armenian population. But almost all of Nagorno-Karabakh’s Armenians quickly fled to Armenia, leaving the region almost unpopulated and creating a refugee crisis.
