TheArmenian highlands (Armenian:Հայկական լեռնաշխարհ,romanized: Haykakan leṙnašxarh; also known as theEastern Anatolian highlands,Armenian upland,Armenian plateau, orArmenian tableland)[3] comprise the most central and the highest of the threeplateaus that together form the northern sector ofWest Asia.[3] Clockwise starting from the west, the Armenian highlands are bounded by theAnatolian plateau, theCaucasus, theKura-Aras lowlands, theIranian Plateau, andMesopotamia.[4] The highlands are divided into western and eastern regions, defined by theArarat Valley whereMount Ararat is located. Since the turn of the 20th century,Western Armenia has been relabeled as "Eastern Anatolia" by Ottoman and Turkish authorities.[5]Eastern Armenia is part ofLesser Caucasus, which was historically known by some as the Anti-Caucasus,[6][7] meaning "opposite of the Caucasus".
During theIron Age, the region was known by variations of the nameArarat (Urartu,Uruatri,Urashtu). Later, the Highlands were known asArmenia Major, a central region to thehistory of Armenians,[8] and one of the fourgeopolitical regions associated withArmenians,[8] the other three beingArmenia Minor,Sophene, andCommagene.[9][10] The highlands are primarily defined by the geographical dispersal of its native inhabitants, the Armenians.[11] Prior to the appearance of nominallyArmenian people in historical records, historians have hypothesized that the region must have been home to various ethnic groups who became homogenous when theArmenian language came to prominence.[12] The population of the Armenian highlands has had a high level of regional genetic continuity for over 6,000 years.[8][13] Recent studies indicate that the Armenian people descend from theindigenous people of the Armenian highlands and form a distinctgenetic isolate in the region.[8][14] The region was also inhabited duringAntiquity by minorities such asAssyrians,Georgians,Greeks,Jews, andIranians. During theMiddle Ages,Arabs and particularlyTurkmens andKurds settled in large numbers in the Armenian highlands.
The Armenian highlands is part of theAlpide belt, forming part of theEurasian range that stretches from thePontic Mountains to theMalay Peninsula. Its total area is about 400,000 km2.[18] The average height of the plateau is between 1000–2000 meters and includes prominent landmarks such asMount Ararat (5,205 m) andMount Aragats (4,180 m).[19]
Historically, the Armenian highlands have been the scene of great volcanic activity.[20] Geologically recentvolcanism on the area has resulted in large volcanic formations and a series ofmassifs andtectonic movement has formed the three largest lakes in the Highlands:Lake Sevan,Lake Van, andLake Urmia.[21]
Despite the region's rich water resources[22] and fertile soil nourished by rivers like the Euphrates, Tigris, and Arax, the present-dayRepublic of Armenia occupies one of the least fertile parts of historic Armenia.[23] Armenians who fled their homeland in the Ottoman Empire during theArmenian Genocide have regarded Eastern Armenia as "only adusty province" without Western Armenia.[24][25]
The central, axial chain of Armenian highland ridges, running from west to east acrossWestern Armenia, is called theAnti-Taurus.[26] In the west, the Anti-Taurus departs to the north from the Central (Cilician) Taurus, and, passing right in the middle of the Armenian plateau, parallel to the Eastern (Armenian)Taurus, ends in the east at the Ararat peaks.[27]
To the west is theAnatolian plateau, which rises slowly from the lowland coast of theAegean Sea and converges with the Armenian highlands to the east ofCappadocia. TheCaucasus extends to the northeast of the Armenian highlands, with theKura river forming its eastern boundary in theKura-Aras lowlands. To its southeast is theIranian plateau, where the elevation drops rapidly by about 600 metres (2,000 ft) to 1,500 metres (5,000 ft) above sea level.[3] To the southwest isMesopotamia (orFertile Crescent).
Armenian highlands Ptolemy Cosmographia 1467Armenian highlands and Caucasus mountains
It occupied a large part of present-day Turkey, the whole of the territory of the present Republic of Armenia, further districts, now in the Republic ofAzerbaijan, immediately adjacent to the east, and the northwest corner of modernIran. The preceding is the definition of Armenia assumed in texts of the Classical and Late Classical periods and laid out explicitly in the early seventh-century C.E. document called theAšxarhac'oyc' ("Geography"). The earlier Arab geographers know Armenia (Arminīya) under this definition, but the Muslim geographers of the late Middle Ages know Armenia as a much more restricted area, effectively the regions of Lake Van,Erzurum, and the upper Aras in Azerbaijan (Adhharbāyjān).
The Armenian highlands are primarily defined by the historical presence and dispersal of its native inhabitants, the Armenian people.[11] Over one thousand years, fromByzantine relocations to themass deportations of 1915–1922, Armenians were gradually and continuously displaced, leaving them a minority in much of their historic homeland and occupying only 10% of their homeland today.[28][29]
From 4000 to 1000 BC, tools and trinkets of copper, bronze and iron were commonly produced in this region and traded in neighboring lands where those metals were less abundant.[citation needed] It is also traditionally believed to be one of the possible locations of theGarden of Eden.[30]
In theEpic of Gilgamesh, the land ofAratta is placed in a geographic space that could be describing the Armenian plateau.[32] InAntiquity, the population living on the Highlands was ethnically diverse, but in theAchaemenid period (550–330 BC),Armenian-speakers came to prominence.[12] Recent studies have shown that Armenians areindigenous to the Armenian highlands and form a distinctgenetic isolate in the region. There are signs of considerablegenetic admixture in Armenians between3000 BC and 2000 BC, these mixture dates also coincide with thelegendary establishment of Armenia in 2492 BCE,[14] but they subside to insignificant levels since 1200 BC, remaining stable until today.
In the early 13th century, as various peoples fled from the advancingMongol onslaught, the Highlands saw the migrations of theKarluk andKharizmian peoples. The Mongols, who did not distinguish betweenChristianity andIslam, reached the Highlands in 1235. With their arrival, Armenia became part of "the East" in its entirety for the first time since the territory was partitioned during theByzantine–Sasanian wars. Considered the successors of theAbbasids,Sassanids and Seljuks, the Mongols eventually converted to Islam and established their dynasty in modern dayAzerbaijan.[35]
In 1410 the area was ruled by theKara Koyunlu, who ruled until 1468. Thepastoral culture of the Kara Koyunlu Turks undermined agricultural practices in Armenia. In 1468, theAk Koyunlu Turks assumed power; their reign lasted until 1502 when theSafavids brought Armenia under Iranian rule. TheOttoman Turks did not take control of the highland region until 1514, several decades after Armenians in theOttoman Empire were givenmillet status. The Highlands came under Ottoman control following the defeat of the Safavids at theBattle of Chalderon; they appointedKurdish tribesman to rule over the highlands' local administrative affairs. By 1516, the Ottoman Empire had invaded all of the Armenian lands, including Cilicia.[36][37]
During the first half of the 19th century, the Ottoman-held parts of the Armenian highlands comprising Western Armenia formed the boundary of the Ottoman andRussian spheres of influence, after the latter had completed its conquest of theCaucasus and Eastern Armenia at the expense of its suzerain,Qajar Iran, afterfour major wars spanning more than two centuries.[39]
Map of massacre locations and deportation and extermination centers during the Armenian genocide 1915–1916.
The name "Armenia" was forbidden to be used in official documents by Ottoman authorities in the 1880s, and the region was officially renamed "Eastern Anatolia" by the Turkish successor state in the 1920s.[5] This was the result of aTurkification campaign to play down the role of Armenians in the region.[40][41][42] The Armenian Highlands saw a massive demographic shift after theArmenian genocide and fall of the Ottoman Empire, withWestern Armenia being relabeled "Eastern Anatolia".[43] Since the Armenian genocide andpartitioning of the Ottoman Empire afterWorld War I, the Highlands have been the boundary region of Turkey,Iran and theSoviet Union and, since the 1991dissolution of the Soviet Union,Armenia, and parts ofGeorgia andAzerbaijan.[32]
Armenia was divided four major times during the medieval and early modern periods:
First Partition (387):Peace of Acilisene between the Sasanian and Byzantine Empires
Second Partition (591): Reinforcement of the earlier division after the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 572–591
Third Partition (1555):Treaty of Amasya between the Safavid Empire and the Ottoman Empire
Fourth Partition (1639):Treaty of Zuhab, establishing lasting borders between Persia and the Ottoman Empire
While these four events mark the major historical partitions of the Armenian highlands, control over Armenian territory shifted many more times, particularly in the 19th and 20th centuries. Notably:
Treaty of Alexandropol (1920): Signed between the First Republic of Armenia and Kemalist Turkey, ceding large territories under pressure — though later superseded.
Treaty of Moscow (1921) andTreaty of Kars (1921): Signed between Soviet Russia, including its Soviet Republics, and Kemalist Turkey, which finalized borders and confirmed Turkish control overWestern Armenia and other disputed regions.
^Hewsen, R. H. (1997). "The Geography of Armenia".The Armenian People from Ancient to Modern Times. Vol. 1. New York: St. Martin's Press. p. 5.ISBN978-0-312-10169-5....it can be said that historical Armenia is more or less the region located between latitudes 38 and 48 degrees and longitudes 37 and 41 degrees, with a total area of approximately 238,000 square miles
^abcdHewsen, Robert H. "The Geography of Armenia" inThe Armenian People From Ancient to Modern Times Volume I: The Dynastic Periods: From Antiquity to the Fourteenth Century.Richard G. Hovannisian (ed.) New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997, pp. 1–17
^Krikorian, Robert; Masih, Joseph (2013).Armenia: At the Crossroads. Postcommunist States and Nations. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis. p. xix.ISBN978-90-5702-344-6.This area includes the territory of the present Republic of Armenia, much of eastern Turkey, the northwestern corner of Iran, as well as territories in the republics of Georgia and Azerbaijan. Towering over both the South Caucasian plain in the north and the lowlands of Mesopotamia in the south, it is linked with Asia Minor to the west and Iran to the east, primarily through the valleys of the upper Euphrates and Arax rivers. It is bounded in the north by the Pontic chain and in the south by the Taurus and the mountains of Kurdistan south of Lake Van.
^ab* The Armenian Genocide: Cultural and Ethical Legacies – Page 3, by Richard G. Hovannisian – 2011
Cheterian, Vicken (2015).Open Wounds: Armenians, Turks and a Century of Genocide. Oxford and New York City: Oxford University Press. p. 65.ISBN978-1-84904-458-5.As a result of policies such as these, the expression Armenian Plateau, which had been used for centuries to denote the mountainous highlands around Lake Van and Lake Sevan, was eliminated and replaced by the expression 'eastern Anatolia'.
Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies. Vol. 14–16. Los Angeles. 2005. p. 55.Most of historical Armenia presently constitutes a part of Turkey (renamed "Eastern Anatolia"), which conducts a policy of minimizing the role of the Armenians in history{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
Smith, Adam T. (December 2022)."Unseeing the Past: Archaeology and the Legacy of the Armenian Genocide".Current Anthropology.63 (S25):S56 –S90.doi:10.1086/722380.ISSN0011-3204.A 1916 decree issued by Enver Pasha, the Young Turks' minister of war, required that all place names of non-Muslim peoples, be they Armenian, Bulgarian, Greek, or other, should be rendered in Turkish. After 1923, the geographic province that had been referred to as Armenia since the sixth century BC was officially renamed 'eastern Anatolia.'
^Bealby, John Thomas; Kropotkin, Peter Alexeivitch (1911)."Caucasus" . InChisholm, Hugh (ed.).Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 05 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 550–555....1. Western Caucasus...&...2. Middle Caucasus: (a) Western Half...&...3. Middle Caucasus: (b) Eastern Part...&...4. The Eastern Section
^abLa Porta, Sergio (2018)."Armenia". In Nicholson, Oliver (ed.).The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.ISBN978-0-19-866277-8.Among the diversity of ethnicities residing on the Armenian plateau in Antiquity, the Armenian-speakers came to prominence during the Achaemenid period.
^Hovhannisyan, Anahit; Jones, Eppie; Delser, Pierpaolo Maisano; Schraiber, Joshua; Hakobyan, Anna; Margaryan, Ashot; Hrechdakian, Peter; Sahakyan, Hovhannes; Saag, Lehti; Khachatryan, Zaruhi; Yepiskoposyan, Levon (2020-06-24)."AN ADMIXTURE SIGNAL IN ARMENIANS AROUND THE END OF THE BRONZE AGE REVEALS WIDESPREAD POPULATION MOVEMENT ACROSS THE MIDDLE EAST".bioRxiv 2020.06.24.168781.doi:10.1101/2020.06.24.168781.S2CID220253091. Archived fromthe original on 2020-08-15.We show that Armenians have indeed remained unadmixed through the Neolithic and at least until the first part of the Bronze Age, and fail to find any support for historical suggestions by Herodotus of an input from the Balkans. However, we do detect a genetic input of Sardinian-like ancestry during or just after the Middle-Late Bronze Age. A similar input at approximately the same time was detected in East Africa, suggesting large-scale movement both North and South of the Middle East. Whether such large-scale population movement was a result of climatic or cultural changes is unclear, as well as the true source of gene flow remains an open question that needs to be addressed in future ancient DNA studies. [...] We focused on solving a long-standing puzzle regarding Armenians' genetic roots. Although the Balkan hypothesis has long been considered the most plausible narrative on the origin of Armenians, our results strongly reject it, showing that modern Armenians are genetically distinct from both the ancient and present-day populations from the Balkans. On the contrary, we confirmed the pattern of genetic affinity between the modern and ancient inhabitants of the Armenian Highland since the Chalcolithic, which was initially identified in previous studies. [...] Sardinians have the highest affinity to early European farmers [...]
^Hewsen, R. H. (1997). "The Geography of Armenia".The Armenian People from Ancient to Modern Times. Vol. 1. New York: St. Martin's Press. p. 5.ISBN978-0-312-10169-5....it can be said that historical Armenia is more or less the region located between latitudes 38 and 48 degrees and longitudes 37 and 41 degrees, with a total area of approximately 238,000 square miles
^Masih, Joseph R.; Krikorian, Robert O. (1999).Armenia: at the crossroads. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Harwood Academic Publishers. p. xix.ISBN90-5702-344-X.
^Volcanoes, their structure and significance Thomas George Bonney – 1912 – Page 243
^Der Völkermord an den Armeniern, Nikolaĭ Oganesovich Oganesian – 2005– Page 6
^abMasih, Joseph R.; Krikorian, Robert O. (1999).Armenia: at the crossroads. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Harwood Academic Publishers. p. xix.ISBN90-5702-344-X.Rivers such as the Euphrates, the Tigris and the Arax flow through the land providing life sustaining water to the fertile soil. Armenia was noted for its harsh winters and hot summers as well as the abundance of its soil. Ironically, the present-day Republic of Armenia finds itself situated on the some of the least fertile land of historic Armenia.
^Walker, Christopher J. (1990).Armenia: the survival of a nation (Rev. 2nd ed.). New York: St. Martin's Press. pp. 272–273.ISBN978-0-312-04230-1.
^Cohen, Robin (2022).Global diasporas: an introduction (25th anniversary ed.). Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group. pp. 49–51.ISBN978-1-003-25652-6.
^Mesopotamian Trade. Noah's Flood: The Garden of Eden, W. Willcocks, H. Rassam pp. 459–460
^Lang, David M.Armenia: Cradle of Civilization. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1970, pp. 50–51, 58–59.
^abEncyclopedia of the Peoples of Asia and Oceania, By Barbara A. West, 2009, p. 47
^Robert Bedrosian,"Armenia during the Seljuk and Mongol Periods," inThe Armenian People from Ancient to Modern Times: Volume I: The Dynastic Periods: From Antiquity to the Fourteenth Century, ed.Richard G. Hovannisian. (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997), pp. 241–272.
^Cheterian, Vicken (2015).Open Wounds: Armenians, Turks and a Century of Genocide. Oxford and New York City: Oxford University Press. p. 65.ISBN978-1-84904-458-5.As a result of policies such as these, the expression Armenian Plateau, which had been used for centuries to denote the mountainous highlands around Lake Van and Lake Sevan, was eliminated and replaced by the expression 'eastern Anatolia'.
^Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies. Vol. 14–16. Los Angeles. 2005. p. 55.Most of historical Armenia presently constitutes a part of Turkey (renamed "Eastern Anatolia"), which conducts a policy of minimizing the role of the Armenians in history{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^The Armenian Genocide: Cultural and Ethical Legacies – Page 3, by Richard G. Hovannisian – 2011
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