Armenia

"Hayastan" redirects here. For other uses, see Armenia (disambiguation) and Hayastan (disambiguation).

Republic of Armenia
Հայաստանի Հանրապետություն (Armenian)
Hayastani Hanrapetut'yun
Anthem: Մեր Հայրենիք
Mer Hayrenik
"Our Fatherland"
Location of Armenia
Location of Armenia
Capital
and largest city
Yerevan
40°11′N 44°31′E / 40.183°N 44.517°E / 40.183; 44.517
Official languagesArmenian[1]
Recognized languages
List:[2][b]
Official scriptArmenian alphabet
Ethnic groups
(2022)[3]
Religion
(2022)[3]
  • 0.6% no religion
  • 0.9% other
  • 1.7% unspecified
Demonym(s)Armenian
GovernmentUnitary parliamentary republic
• President
Vahagn Khachaturyan
Nikol Pashinyan
Alen Simonyan
LegislatureNational Assembly
Establishment
• Urartu
860 BC–547/90 BC
331 BC–428 AD
880s–1045
1198/99–1375
1201–1350
28 May 1918
29 November 1920
23 September 1991
21 December 1991
Area
• Total
29,743 km2 (11,484 sq mi) (138th)
• Water (%)
4.71[4]
Population
• 2024[5] estimate
3,015,400 (138th)
• Density
101.5/km2 (262.9/sq mi)
GDP (PPP)2024 estimate
• Total
Increase $64.432 billion[6] (114th)
• Per capita
Increase $21,746[6] (77th)
GDP (nominal)2024 estimate
• Total
Increase $25.408 billion[6] (115th)
• Per capita
Increase $8,575[6] (84th)
Gini (2022)Steady 27.9[7]
low inequality
HDI (2022)Increase 0.786[8]
high (76th)
CurrencyDram (֏) (AMD)
Time zoneUTC+4 (AMT)
Date formatdd.mm.yyyy
Drives onright
Calling code+374
ISO 3166 codeAM
Internet TLD
Website
www.gov.am

Armenia,[c] officially the Republic of Armenia,[d] is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of West Asia.[10][11] It is a part of the Caucasus region and is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia to the north and Azerbaijan to the east, and Iran and the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan to the south.[12] Yerevan is the capital, largest city and financial center.

Armenia is a unitary, multi-party, democratic nation-state with an ancient cultural heritage. The Armenian Highlands has been home to the Hayasa-Azzi, Shupria and Nairi. By at least 600 BC, an archaic form of Proto-Armenian, an Indo-European language, had diffused into the Armenian Highlands.[13][14] The first Armenian state of Urartu was established in 860 BC, and by the 6th century BC it was replaced by the Satrapy of Armenia. The Kingdom of Armenia reached its height under Tigranes the Great in the 1st century BC and in the year 301 became the first state in the world to adopt Christianity as its official religion.[15][16][17][e] Armenia still recognises the Armenian Apostolic Church, the world's oldest national church, as the country's primary religious establishment.[18][f] The ancient Armenian kingdom was split between the Byzantine and Sasanian Empires around the early 5th century. Under the Bagratuni dynasty, the Bagratid Kingdom of Armenia was restored in the 9th century before falling in 1045. Cilician Armenia, an Armenian principality and later a kingdom, was located on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea between the 11th and 14th centuries.

Between the 16th and 19th centuries, the traditional Armenian homeland composed of Eastern Armenia and Western Armenia came under the rule of the Ottoman and Persian empires, repeatedly ruled by either of the two over the centuries. By the 19th century, Eastern Armenia had been conquered by the Russian Empire, while most of the western parts of the traditional Armenian homeland remained under Ottoman rule. During World War I, up to 1.5 million Armenians living in their ancestral lands in the Ottoman Empire were systematically exterminated in the Armenian genocide. In 1918, following the Russian Revolution, all non-Russian countries declared their independence after the Russian Empire ceased to exist, leading to the establishment of the First Republic of Armenia. By 1920, the state was incorporated into the Soviet Union as the Armenian SSR. The modern Republic of Armenia became independent in 1991 during the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Armenia is a developing country and ranks 85th on the Human Development Index (2021).[8] Its economy is primarily based on industrial output and mineral extraction. While Armenia is geographically located in the South Caucasus, it is generally considered geopolitically European. Since Armenia aligns itself in many respects geopolitically with Europe, the country is a member of numerous European organizations including the Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe, the Council of Europe, the Eastern Partnership, Eurocontrol, the Assembly of European Regions, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Armenia is also a member of certain regional groups throughout Eurasia, including the Asian Development Bank, the Collective Security Treaty Organization,[g] the Eurasian Economic Union, and the Eurasian Development Bank. Armenia supported the once de facto independent Republic of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), which was proclaimed in 1991 on territory internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, until the republic's dissolution in September 2023.

  1. ^ "Constitution of Armenia, Article 20". president.am. Archived from the original on 3 December 2022. Retrieved 18 January 2018.
  2. ^ "States Parties to the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages and their regional or minority languages". Council of Europe. 1 November 2022. Retrieved 13 December 2023.
  3. ^ a b "CIA World Factbook". 5 March 2024. Archived from the original on 4 January 2021. Retrieved 23 January 2021.
  4. ^ "The World Fact Book – Armenia". Central Intelligence Agency. Archived from the original on 4 January 2021. Retrieved 17 July 2010.
  5. ^ "Average de jure Population Number, thousand pers.* / 2024".
  6. ^ a b c d "World Economic Outlook Database, April 2024". Washington, D.C.: International Monetary Fund. April 2024. Retrieved 21 April 2024.
  7. ^ "Gini index - Armenia". World Bank. Archived from the original on 21 November 2018. Retrieved 22 April 2024.
  8. ^ a b "Human Development Report 2023/2024". United Nations Development Programme. 19 March 2024. Archived from the original on 19 March 2024. Retrieved 19 March 2024.
  9. ^ "Armenia Archived 10 December 2015 at the Wayback Machine." Dictionary.com Unabridged. 2015.
  10. ^ The UN classification of world regions Archived 25 June 2002 at the Wayback Machine places Armenia in West Asia; the CIA World Factbook "Armenia". The World Factbook. CIA. Archived from the original on 4 January 2021. Retrieved 2 September 2010. "Armenia". National Geographic. Archived from the original on 8 August 2007. Retrieved 16 April 2009., "Armenia". Encyclopædia Britannica. Archived from the original on 1 April 2009. Retrieved 16 April 2009., Calendario Atlante De Agostini (in Italian) (111 ed.). Novara: Istituto Geografico De Agostini. 2015. p. sub voce. ISBN 9788851124908. and Oxford Reference Online "World Encyclopedia". Oxford Reference. World Encyclopedia. Oxford Reference Online. 2004. doi:10.1093/acref/9780199546091.001.0001. ISBN 9780199546091. also place Armenia in Asia.
  11. ^ "General information about Republic of Armenia". Armenia: Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Armenia). Archived from the original on 5 October 2023. Retrieved 2 October 2023. The country is situated in western part of Asia, occupies the north-eastern part of Armenian plateau – between Caucasus and Nearest Asia
  12. ^ The Oxford Encyclopedia of Economic History. Oxford University Press. 2003. p. 156. ISBN 978-0-19-510507-0.
  13. ^ Mallory, J. P.; Adams, Douglas Q. (1997). Encyclopedia of Indo-European culture. London: Fitzroy Dearborn. p. 30. ISBN 978-1884964985. OCLC 37931209. Armenian presence in their historical seats should then be sought at some time before c 600 BC; [...] Armenian phonology, for instance, appears to have been greatly affected by Urartian, which may suggest a long period of bilingualism.
  14. ^ Robert Drews (2017). Militarism and the Indo-Europeanizing of Europe. Routledge. ISBN 978-0367886004. p. 228: "The vernacular of the Great Kingdom of Biainili was quite certainly Armenian. The Armenian language was obviously the region's vernacular in the fifth century BC, when Persian commanders and Greek writers paired it with Phrygian. That it as brought into the region between the early sixth and the early fifth century BC, and that it immediately obliterated whatever else had been spoken there, can hardly be supposed; [...] Because Proto-Armenian speakers seem to have lived not far from Hurrian speakers our conclusion must be that the Armenian language of Mesrop Mashtots was descended from an Indo-European language that had been spoken in southern Caucasia in the Bronze Age."
  15. ^ (Garsoïan, Nina (1997). R.G. Hovannisian (ed.). Armenian People from Ancient to Modern Times. Vol. 1. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 81.)
  16. ^ Stringer, Martin D. (2005). A Sociological History of Christian Worship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 92. ISBN 978-0-521-81955-8.
  17. ^ Grousset, René (1947). Histoire de l'Arménie (1984 ed.). Payot. p. 122.. Estimated dates vary from 284 to 314. Garsoïan (op.cit. p. 82), following the research of Ananian, favours the latter.
  18. ^ "Constitution of Armenia - Library - The President of Armenia". president.am. Archived from the original on 3 December 2022. Retrieved 7 March 2020.


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