Armenia

The original native Armenian name for the country was Հայք (Hayk') after the legendary founder Hayk Nahapet; however, it is currently rarely used. The contemporary name Հայաստան (Hayastan) became popular in the Middle Ages by addition of the Persian suffix -stan (place). However the origins of the name Hayastan trace back to much earlier dates and were first attested in c. 5th century in the works of Agathangelos, Faustus of Byzantium, Ghazar Parpetsi, Koryun, and Sebeos.

The name has traditionally been derived from Hayk (Հայկ), the legendary patriarch of the Armenians and a great-great-grandson of Noah, who, according to the 5th-century AD author Movsis Khorenatsi, defeated the Babylonian king Bel in 2492 BC and established his nation in the Ararat region. Further origin of the name is uncertain. It is postulated that the name Hay comes from one of the two confederated, Hittite vassal states – the Ḫayaša-Azzi (1600–1200 BC).

The exonym Armenia is attested in the Old Persian Behistun Inscription (515 BC) as Armina (𐎠𐎼𐎷𐎡𐎴). The Ancient Greek terms Ἀρμενία (Armenía) and Ἀρμένιοι (Arménioi, "Armenians") are first mentioned by Hecataeus of Miletus (c. 550 BC – c. 476 BC). Xenophon, a Greek general serving in some of the Persian expeditions, describes many aspects of Armenian village life and hospitality in around 401 BC.

Some scholars have linked the name Armenia with the Early Bronze Age state of Armani (Armanum, Armi) or the Late Bronze Age state of Arme (Shupria). These connections are inconclusive as it is not known what languages were spoken in these kingdoms. Additionally, while it is agreed that Arme was located to the immediate west of Lake Van (probably in the vicinity of Sason, and therefore in the greater Armenia region), the location of the older site of Armani is a matter of debate. Some modern researchers have placed it near modern Samsat, and have suggested it was populated, at least partially, by an early Indo-European-speaking people. It is possible that the name Armenia originates in Armini, Urartian for "inhabitant of Arme" or "Armean country". The Arme tribe of Urartian texts may have been the Urumu, who in the 12th century BC attempted to invade Assyria from the north with their allies the Mushki and the Kaskians. The Urumu apparently settled in the vicinity of Sason, lending their name to the regions of Arme and the nearby lands of Urme and Inner Urumu.

According to the histories of both Movsis Khorenatsi and Michael Chamchian, Armenia derives from the name of Aram, a lineal descendant of Hayk. In the Hebrew Bible, the Table of Nations lists Aram as the son of Shem, to whom the Book of Jubilees attests, And for Aram there came forth the fourth portion, all the land of Mesopotamia between the Tigris and the Euphrates to the north of the Chaldees to the border of the mountains of Asshur and the land of 'Arara'. Jubilees 8:21 also apportions the Mountains of Ararat to Shem, which Jubilees 9:5 expounds to be apportioned to Aram.

Jewish historian Flavius Josephus states in his Antiquities of the Jews,

Aram had the Aramites, which the Greeks called Syrians;... Of the four sons of Aram, Uz founded Trachonitis and Damascus: this country lies between Palestine and Celesyria. Ul founded Armenia; and Gather the Bactrians; and Mesa the Mesaneans; it is now called Charax Spasini.

=== Prehistoric ===

The first human traces are supported by the presence of Acheulean tools, generally close to the obsidian outcrops more than 1 million years ago. The most recent and important excavation is at the Nor Geghi 1 Stone Age site in the Hrazdan river valley. Thousands of 325,000 year-old artifacts may indicate that this stage of human technological innovation occurred intermittently throughout the Old World, rather than spreading from a single point of origin (usually hypothesized to be Africa), as was previously thought.

Many early Bronze Age settlements were built in Armenia (Valley of Ararat, Shengavit, Harich, Karaz, Amiranisgora, Margahovit, Garni, etc.). One of the important sites of the Early Bronze Age is Shengavit settlement. It was located on the site of today's capital of Armenia, Yerevan.

Armenia lies in the highlands surrounding the mountains of Ararat. There is evidence of an early civilisation in Armenia in the Bronze Age and earlier, dating to about 4000 BC. Archaeological surveys in 2010 and 2011 at the Areni-1 cave complex have resulted in the discovery of the world's earliest known leather shoe, skirt, and wine-producing facility.

Several Bronze Age cultures and states flourished in the area of Greater Armenia, including the Trialeti-Vanadzor culture, Hayasa-Azzi, and Mitanni (located in southwestern historical Armenia), all of which are believed to have had Indo-European populations. The Nairi confederation and its successor, Urartu, successively established their sovereignty over the Armenian Highlands. Each of the aforementioned nations and confederacies participated in the ethnogenesis of the Armenians. A large cuneiform lapidary inscription found in Yerevan established that the modern capital of Armenia was founded in the summer of 782 BC by King Argishti I. Yerevan is one of the world's oldest continuously inhabited cities.

After the fall of the state of Urartu at the beginning of the 6th century BC, the Armenian highlands were for some time under the hegemony of the Medes, and after that they were part of the Achaemenid Empire. Armenia was part of the Achaemenid state from the second half of the 6th century BC until the second half of the 4th century BC divided into two satrapies: XIII (western part, with the capital in Melitene) and XVIII (northeastern part). During the late 6th century BC, the first geographical entity that was called Armenia by neighbouring populations was established under the Orontid dynasty.

The kingdom became fully sovereign from the sphere of influence of the Seleucid Empire in 190 BC under King Artaxias I and begun the rule of the Artaxiad dynasty. Armenia reached its height between 95 and 66 BC under Tigranes the Great, becoming the most powerful kingdom of its time east of the Roman Republic.

In the next centuries, Armenia was in the Persian Empire's sphere of influence during the reign of Tiridates I, the founder of the Arsacid dynasty of Armenia, which was a branch of the Parthian Empire. Throughout its history, the kingdom of Armenia enjoyed both periods of independence and periods of autonomy subject to contemporary empires. Its strategic location between two continents has subjected it to invasions by many peoples, including Assyria (under Ashurbanipal, at around 669–627 BC, the boundaries of Assyria reached as far as Armenia and the Caucasus Mountains), Medes, Achaemenid Empire, Greeks, Parthians, Romans, Sasanian Empire, Byzantine Empire, Arabs, Seljuk Empire, Mongols, Ottoman Empire, the successive Safavid, Afsharid, and Qajar dynasties of Iran, and the Russians.

Religion in ancient Armenia was historically related to a set of beliefs that, in Persia, led to the emergence of Zoroastrianism. It particularly focused on the worship of Mithra and also included a pantheon of gods such as Aramazd, Vahagn, Anahit, and Astghik. The country used the solar Armenian calendar, which consisted of 12 months.

Christianity first appeared in Armenia in the 1st century AD, with the arrival of two of Jesus's twelve apostles – Thaddaeus and Bartholomew. Under the influence of Gregory the Illuminator, King Tiridates III proclaimed Christianity as the state religion in 301, partly in defiance of the Sasanian Empire. Armenia thus became the first officially Christian state. Prior to this, during the latter part of the Parthian era, Armenia was a predominantly Zoroastrian country.

Another major cornerstone of Armenian identity – the Armenian alphabet – was invented a century later by Mesrop Mashtots c. 405. After the fall of the Armenian Arsacids in 428, most of Armenia was incorporated as a marzpanate within Sasanian Persia. Following the Battle of Avarayr in 451, Christian Armenians maintained their religion, and Armenia gained autonomy in the Treaty of Nvarsak in 484.

The Sassanid Empire was conquered by the Rashidun Caliphate in the mid 7th century, reuniting Armenian lands previously taken by the Byzantine Empire, and Armenia subsequently emerged as Arminiya, an autonomous principality under the Umayyad Caliphate. The principality was ruled by the Prince of Armenia, and recognised by the Caliph and the Byzantine Emperor. It was part of the administrative division/emirate Arminiya created by the Arabs, which also included parts of Georgia and Caucasian Albania, and had its centre in the Armenian city Dvin. Arminiya lasted until 884, when it regained its independence from the weakened Abbasid Caliphate under Ashot I of Armenia.

The reemergent Armenian kingdom was ruled by the Bagratuni dynasty and lasted until 1045. In time, several areas of the Bagratid Armenia separated as independent kingdoms and principalities such as the Kingdom of Vaspurakan ruled by the House of Artsruni in the south, Kingdom of Syunik in the east, or Kingdom of Artsakh on the territory of modern Nagorno-Karabakh, while still recognising the supremacy of the Bagratid kings.

In 1045, the Byzantine Empire conquered Bagratid Armenia. Soon, the other Armenian states fell under Byzantine control as well. The Byzantine rule was short-lived, as in 1071 the Seljuk Empire defeated the Byzantines and conquered Armenia at the Battle of Manzikert. Ruben I, Prince of Armenia, went with some of his countrymen into the gorges of the Taurus Mountains and then into Tarsus of Cilicia; he was escaping death or servitude at the hands of those who had killed Gagik II, King of Ani, his relative. The Byzantine governor of the palace gave them shelter where the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia was eventually established on 6 January 1198 under Leo I, King of Armenia, a descendant of Prince Ruben.

Cilicia was a strong ally of the European Crusaders and saw itself as a bastion of Christendom in the East. Cilicia's significance in Armenian history and statehood is also attested by the transfer of the seat of the Catholicos of the Armenian Apostolic Church, the spiritual leader of the Armenian people, to the region.

In the early 12th century, Armenian princes of the Zakarid family drove out the Seljuk Turks and established a semi-independent principality in northern and eastern Armenia known as Zakarid Armenia, which lasted under the patronage of the Georgian Kingdom. The Orbelian dynasty shared control with the Zakarids in various parts of the country, especially in Syunik and Vayots Dzor, while the House of Hasan-Jalalyan controlled provinces of Artsakh and Utik as the Kingdom of Artsakh.

During the 1230s, the Mongol Empire conquered Zakarid Armenia and then the remainder of Armenia. The Mongolian invasions were soon followed by those of other Central Asian tribes, such as the Kara Koyunlu, Timurid dynasty and Ağ Qoyunlu, which continued from the 13th century until the 15th century. After incessant invasions, each bringing destruction to the country, with time Armenia became weakened.

In the 16th century, the Ottoman Empire and the Safavid dynasty of Iran divided Armenia. From the early 16th century, both Western Armenia and Eastern Armenia fell to the Safavids. Owing to the century long Turco-Iranian geopolitical rivalry that would last in West Asia, significant parts of the region were frequently fought over between the two rivalling empires during the Ottoman–Persian Wars. From the mid 16th century with the Peace of Amasya, and decisively from the first half of the 17th century with the Treaty of Zuhab until the first half of the 19th century, Eastern Armenia was ruled by the successive Safavid, Afsharid and Qajar dynasties, while Western Armenia remained under Ottoman rule. From 1604, Abbas I of Iran implemented a "scorched earth" policy in the region to protect his north-western frontier against any invading Ottoman forces, a policy that involved a forced resettlement of masses of Armenians outside of their homelands.

The 18th century saw the first foray of the Russian Empire into the region, with Peter the Great and his alliance with the Armenian meliks of Syunik and Artsakh during the Russo-Persian War (1722–1723). Despite the setbacks of Peter's campaign, this initial move encouraged the meliks in their resistance struggle against the Safavids and the Ottomans. However, it was not until the early 19th century that Eastern Armenia formally passed to Russian control, following the Russo-Persian War (1804–1813) and the Russo-Persian War (1826–1828). In the 1813 Treaty of Gulistan and the 1828 Treaty of Turkmenchay, Qajar Iran ceded to Russia the Karabakh, Erivan, and Nakhichevan Khanates. The Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) resulted in further gains for Russian Armenia, notably the regions of Kars and Ardahan.

Most of Western Armenia, however, remained under Ottoman rule. Within the Ottoman millet system, Armenians lived in relative harmony with other groups, including the ruling Turks. However, as Christians under a strict Muslim social structure, Armenians faced pervasive discrimination. In response to the 1894 Sasun rebellion, Sultan Abdul Hamid II organised state-sponsored massacres against the Armenians between 1894 and 1896, resulting in close to 200,000 deaths. The Hamidian massacres, as they came to be known, gave Abdul Hamid international infamy as the "Bloody Sultan" or the "Red Sultan".

During the 1890s, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, commonly known as the Dashnaktsutyun, became active within the Ottoman Empire with the aim of unifying the various small groups in the empire that were advocating for reform and defending Armenian villages from massacres that were widespread in some of the Armenian-populated areas of the empire. Dashnaktsutyun members also formed Armenian fedayi groups that defended Armenian civilians through armed resistance. The Dashnaks also worked for the wider goal of creating a "free, independent and unified" Armenia, although they sometimes set aside this goal in favour of a more realistic approach, such as advocating autonomy.

The Ottoman Empire began to collapse, and in 1908, the Young Turk Revolution overthrew the government of Sultan Hamid. In April 1909, the Adana massacre occurred in the Adana Vilayet resulting in the deaths of as many as 20,000–30,000 Armenians. The Armenians living in the empire hoped that the Committee of Union and Progress would change their second-class status. The Armenian reform package (1914) was presented as a solution by appointing an inspector general over Armenian issues.

The outbreak of World War I led to confrontation between the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empire in the Caucasus and Persian campaigns. The new government in Istanbul began to look on the Armenians with distrust and suspicion because the Imperial Russian Army contained a contingent of Armenian volunteers. On 24 April 1915, Armenian intellectuals were arrested by Ottoman authorities and, with the Tehcir Law (29 May 1915), eventually a large proportion of Armenians living in Anatolia perished in what has become known as the Armenian genocide.

The genocide was implemented in two phases: the wholesale killing of the able-bodied male population through massacre and subjection of army conscripts to forced labour, followed by the deportation of women, children, the elderly and infirm on death marches leading to the Syrian desert. Driven forward by military escorts, the deportees were deprived of food and water and subjected to periodic robbery, rape, and massacre. There was local Armenian resistance in the region, developed against the activities of the Ottoman Empire. The events of 1915 to 1917 are regarded by Armenians and the vast majority of Western historians to have been state-sponsored mass killings, or genocide.

Turkish authorities deny the genocide took place to this day. The Armenian genocide is acknowledged to have been one of the first modern genocides. According to the research conducted by Arnold J. Toynbee, an estimated 600,000 Armenians died during deportation from 1915 to 1916. This figure, however, accounts for solely the first year of the genocide and does not take into account those who died or were killed after the report was compiled on 24 May 1916. The International Association of Genocide Scholars places the death toll at "more than a million". The total number of people killed has been most widely estimated at between 1 and 1.5 million. Armenia and the Armenian diaspora have been campaigning for official recognition of the events as genocide for over 30 years. These events are traditionally commemorated yearly on 24 April, the Armenian Martyr Day, or the Day of the Armenian genocide.

The Imperial Russian Caucasus Army, commanded by Nikolai Yudenich, and the Armenian volunteer units, led by Andranik Ozanian and Tovmas Nazarbekian, succeeded in gaining much of Western Armenia during World War I. However, their gains were lost with the October Revolution of 1917. At the time, Russian-controlled Eastern Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan attempted to bond together in the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic. This federation, however, lasted from only February to May 1918, when all three parties decided to dissolve it. As a result, the Dashnak-dominated government of Eastern Armenia declared its independence on 28 May as the First Republic of Armenia under the leadership of Aram Manukian.

The First Republic's short-lived independence was fraught with war, territorial disputes, ethnic unrest, Bolshevik rebellions, and a mass influx of refugees from Western Armenia, bringing with them disease and starvation. The Entente Powers sought to help the newly founded Armenian state through relief funds and other forms of support.

At the end of the war, the victorious powers sought to divide up the Ottoman Empire. Signed between the Allied Powers and the Ottoman Empire at Sèvres on 10 August 1920, the Treaty of Sèvres promised to maintain the existence of the Armenian republic and to attach the former territories of Western Armenia to it. Because the new borders of Armenia were to be drawn by United States President Woodrow Wilson, Western Armenia was also referred to as "Wilsonian Armenia". In addition, just days prior on 5 August, Mihran Damadian of the Armenian National Union, the de facto Armenian administration in Cilicia, declared the independence of Cilicia as an Armenian autonomous republic under French protectorate. There was even consideration of making Armenia a mandate under the protection of the United States. The treaty, however, was rejected by the Turkish National Movement and never came into effect.

In 1920, Turkish nationalist forces invaded the fledgling Armenian republic from the east. Under the command of Kâzım Karabekir, they captured the Armenian territories that Imperial Russia had annexed in 1878 and occupied Alexandropol (today Gyumri). Hostilities finally concluded with the Treaty of Alexandropol on 2 December 1920. The treaty forced Armenia to disarm most of its military forces and to cede all former Ottoman territory granted to it by the Treaty of Sèvres. Simultaneously, the 11th Red Army, led by Sergo Ordzhonikidze, invaded Armenia at Karavansarai (today Ijevan) on 29 November. By early December, Ordzhonikidze's forces entered Yerevan and the short-lived Armenian republic collapsed.

After the fall of the First Republic, the war communism policies of the new Soviet Armenian government led to the February Uprising of 1921. Following the defeat of that revolt, Armenian forces under the command of Garegin Nzhdeh established the Republic of Mountainous Armenia and continued to fight Soviet forces in the southern region of Zangezur. To end the rebellion, Soviet authorities pledged to include the Syunik Province within Armenia's borders. The Red Army soon took control of the region, driving the leaders of the revolt out of Armenia, across the Araks River into Iran on 15 July 1921.

==== Sovietization to Stalinism ====

Following Armenia's Sovietization, the Treaty of Alexandropol was superseded by the Treaty of Moscow and the Treaty of Kars. In these agreements, Turkey renounced its claims on Batumi to Soviet Georgia in exchange for the provinces of Kars, Ardahan, and Surmalu, all of which had been under Turkish military control since the Turkish invasion of Armenia in 1920. The territory ceded to Turkey included the medieval Armenian capital Ani and Mount Ararat, the national symbol of the Armenian people. Together with Soviet Georgia and Soviet Azerbaijan, Soviet Armenia officially entered the USSR as part of the Transcaucasian SFSR (TSFSR) in March 1922. The TSFSR later split into three separate republics in December 1936 – the Armenian SSR, the Azerbaijan SSR, and the Georgian SSR.

Vladimir Lenin, who "favored a moderate policy in Armenia," appointed Alexander Miasnikian, an experienced administrator, to oversee affairs in the republic. During the era of the New Economic Policy (NEP), Armenia enjoyed a period of stability and cultural revival within the USSR, in contrast to the turbulent years of the First Republic. However, after the death of Lenin and the rise of Joseph Stalin to the Soviet leadership, the situation changed significantly. Armenians suffered greatly during Stalin's Great Purge, with Lavrentiy Beria playing an especially conspicuous role, beginning with the death of the popular Soviet Armenian leader Aghasi Khanjian in 1936. The repressions claimed the lives of major Armenian intellectual figures like Yeghishe Charents, Axel Bakunts, and Vahan Totovents. The Armenian Church also suffered in this period, culminating in the murder of the Armenian Catholicos Khoren I, an act for which Beria is usually held responsible.

Armenia was not the scene of any battles in the Great Patriotic War of World War II. Nevertheless, an estimated 500,000 Armenians (nearly a third of the population) served in the Red Army during the war, and 175,000 died. A total of 117 citizens of Soviet Armenia, including 10 non-Armenians, were awarded Hero of the Soviet Union. Six special military divisions were formed in Armenia in 1941–42. Five of them, the 89th, 409th, 408th, 390th, and 76th Divisions, would have a distinguished war record, while the sixth was ordered to stay in Armenia to guard the republic's western borders against a possible incursion by neighboring Turkey. The 89th Tamanyan Division, composed of ethnic Armenians, fought in the Battle of Berlin. Over 60 Armenians were promoted to the rank of general, while one attained the rank of Admiral (Ivan Isakov) and three achieved the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union (Ivan Bagramyan, Hamazasp Babadzhanian, and Sergei Khudyakov).

After the death of Stalin in 1953, Armenia experienced a new period of liberalization under Nikita Khrushchev's Thaw. In March 1954, two years before Khrushchev denounced Stalin, his close ally, the Armenian statesman Anastas Mikoyan, flew to Yerevan and called for the rehabilitation of Charents and the republication of the writers Raphael Patkanian and Raffi. During the Thaw, life in Soviet Armenia soon began to see rapid improvement with greater investment in housing and the consumer economy. The Armenian Church, which was limited under Stalin, was revived when Catholicos Vazgen I assumed the duties of his office in 1955. In 1962, the massive statue of Stalin that towered over Yerevan was pulled down from its pedestal by troops and replaced with that of Mother Armenia in 1967. That same year, a memorial to the victims of the Armenian genocide was built at the Tsitsernakaberd hill above the Hrazdan gorge in Yerevan. This occurred after mass demonstrations took place on the tragic event's fiftieth anniversary in 1965.

Following the Brezhnev era, Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms of glasnost and perestroika witnessed a major national revival in Armenia with the rise of the Karabakh movement. Taking advantage of the new political climate, the Armenians of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) of Soviet Azerbaijan began to demand unification with Soviet Armenia, citing discrimination by Baku. Peaceful protests in Armenia supporting the Karabakh Armenians became common. By the beginning of 1988, nearly one million Armenians from several regions of the republic engaged in these demonstrations, centered on Yerevan's Theater Square (today Freedom Square). However, in neighboring Azerbaijan, violence against Armenians erupted in the city of Sumgait. Ethnic rioting soon broke out between Armenians and Azeris, preventing any peaceful resolution from taking place. Compounding Armenia's problems was a devastating earthquake in 1988 with a surface-wave magnitude of 6.8. Another major pogrom against Armenians in Baku in January 1990 forced almost all of the 200,000 Armenians in the Azerbaijani capital to flee to Armenia.

Gorbachev's inability to alleviate any of Armenia's problems created disillusionment among the Armenians and fed a growing hunger for independence. On 23 August 1990, Armenia declared its sovereignty on its territory. On 17 March 1991, Armenia, along with the Baltic states, Georgia and Moldova, boycotted a nationwide referendum in which 78% of all voters voted for the retention of the Soviet Union in a reformed form.

On 21 September 1991, Armenia officially declared its statehood after the failed August coup in Moscow in the Russian SFSR. Levon Ter-Petrosyan, who rose to prominence during the Karabakh movement, was popularly elected the first president of the newly independent Republic of Armenia in October 1991. The Soviet Union formally dissolved following the Belovezha Accords in December 1991 and Armenia's independence was recognised.

Ter-Petrosyan led Armenia alongside defence minister Vazgen Sargsyan through the First Nagorno-Karabakh War with neighbouring Azerbaijan. The initial post-Soviet years were marred by economic difficulties and a severe energy crisis. The latter was rooted in the early years of the Karabakh conflict when the Azerbaijani Popular Front managed to pressure the Azerbaijan SSR to instigate a railway and air blockade against Armenia. This move effectively debilitated Armenia's economy as 85% of its cargo and goods arrived through rail traffic. In 1993, Turkey joined the blockade against Armenia in support of Azerbaijan.

The first Karabakh war ended after a Russian-brokered ceasefire was concluded in 1994. The war was a success for the Karabakh Armenian forces who managed to capture practically the entire territory of the former NKAO as well as most of seven adjacent districts of Azerbaijan. The Armenian backed forces remained in control of almost all of that territory until 2020. By the time both Azerbaijan and Armenia had finally agreed to a ceasefire in 1994, an estimated 30,000 people had been killed and over a million had been displaced.

In the 21st century, Armenia continued to face many hardships. The 2018 Armenian Revolution was a series of anti-government protests in Armenia from April to May 2018 staged by various political and civil groups led by a member of the Armenian parliament—Nikol Pashinyan (head of the Civil Contract party). Protests and marches took place initially in response to Serzh Sargsyan's third consecutive term as President of Armenia and later against the Republican Party controlled government in general. Pashinyan declared the movement, which led to Sargsyan's resignation, a "velvet revolution".

In March 2018, the Armenian parliament elected Armen Sarkissian as the new President of Armenia. The controversial constitutional reform to reduce presidential power was implemented, while the authority of the prime minister was strengthened. In May 2018, parliament elected opposition leader Nikol Pashinyan as the new prime minister. His predecessor Serzh Sargsyan resigned two weeks earlier following widespread anti-government demonstrations.

On 27 September 2020, a full-scale war erupted due to the unresolved Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Both the armed forces of Armenia and Azerbaijan reported military and civilian casualties. The Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire agreement to end the six-week war between Armenia and Azerbaijan was seen by many as Armenia's defeat and capitulation. The year-long March of Dignity protests forced early elections.

On 20 June 2021, Pashinyan's Civil Contract party won an early parliamentary election. Acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan was officially appointed to the post of prime minister by Armenia's President Armen Sarkissian. In January 2022, Armenian President Armen Sarkissian resigned from office, stating that the constitution no longer gives the president sufficient powers or influence. On 3 March 2022, Vahagn Khachaturyan was elected as the fifth president of Armenia in the second round of parliamentary vote. The next month yet more protests broke out.

Between 19 and 20 September 2023, Azerbaijan launched a large-scale military offensive against the self-declared breakaway state of Artsakh, a move seen by the European Parliament as a violation of the 2020 ceasefire agreement. The offensive took place in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, but populated by Armenians. The attacks occurred in the midst of an escalating crisis caused by Azerbaijan blockading Artsakh, which resulted in significant scarcities of essential supplies such as food, medicine, and other goods in the affected region.

One day after the offensive started, on 20 September, a ceasefire agreement was reached at the mediation of the Russian peacekeeping command in Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan held a meeting with representatives of the Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians on 21 September in Yevlakh, to be followed by another meeting in October. Ceasefire violations by Azerbaijan were nonetheless reported by both Artsakhi residents and officials.

Human rights organisations and experts in genocide prevention issued multiple alerts, stating that the region's Armenian population was at risk or actively being subjected to ethnic cleansing and genocide. Luis Moreno Ocampo, a former prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, warned that another Armenian genocide could take place, and attributed the inaction of the international community to encouraging Azerbaijan that it would face no serious consequences.

On 8 August 2025, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev signed a joint declaration at the White House, committing to a peace deal facilitated by the Trump administration that would end nearly four decades of conflict between the two countries.

Armenia is a landlocked country in the geopolitical Transcaucasus (South Caucasus) region, that is located in the Southern Caucasus Mountains and their lowlands between the Black Sea and Caspian Sea, and northeast of the Armenian Highlands. Armenia is widely accepted as part of West Asia geographically, although other definitions place it either fully in Europe or across Europe and Asia. Located on the Armenian Highlands, it is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia to the north, the Lachin corridor which is a part of Lachin District that is under the control of a Russian peacekeeping force and Azerbaijan proper to the east, and Iran and Azerbaijan's exclave of Nakhchivan to the south. Armenia lies between latitudes 38° and 42° N, and meridians 43° and 47° E. It contains two terrestrial ecoregions: Caucasus mixed forests and Eastern Anatolian montane steppe.

Armenia has a territorial area of 29,743 square kilometres (11,484 sq mi). The terrain is mostly mountainous, with fast flowing rivers, and few forests. The land rises to 4,090 metres (13,419 feet) above sea level at Mount Aragats, and no point is below 390 metres (1,280 ft) above sea level. Average elevation of the country area is tenth highest in the world and it has 85.9% mountain area, more than Switzerland or Nepal.

Mount Ararat, which was historically part of Armenia, is the highest mountain in the region at 5,137 meters (16,854 feet). Now located in Turkey, but clearly visible from Armenia, it is regarded by the Armenians as a symbol of their land. Because of this, the mountain is present on the Armenian national emblem today.

The climate in Armenia is markedly highland continental. Summers are hot, dry and sunny, lasting from June to mid-September. The temperature fluctuates between 22 and 36 °C (72 and 97 °F). However, the low humidity level mitigates the effect of high temperatures. Evening breezes blowing down the mountains provide a welcome refreshing and cooling effect. Springs are short, while autumns are long. Autumns are known for their vibrant and colourful foliage.

Winters are quite cold with plenty of snow, with temperatures ranging between −10 and −5 °C (14 and 23 °F). Winter sports enthusiasts enjoy skiing down the hills of Tsaghkadzor, located thirty minutes outside Yerevan. Lake Sevan, nestled up in the Armenian highlands, is the second largest lake in the world relative to its altitude, at 1,900 metres (6,234 ft) above sea level.