Yerevan is the capital and largest city of Armenia as well as one of the world's oldest continuously inhabited cities. Situated along the Hrazdan River, Yerevan is the administrative, cultural, and industrial center of the country. It has been the capital since 1918, the fourteenth in the history of Armenia and the seventh located in or around the Ararat plain. The city also serves as the seat of the Araratian Pontifical Diocese; the largest diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church and one of the oldest dioceses in the world.
Armenia lies in the highlands surrounding the Biblical mountains of Ararat. The original Armenian name for the country was Hayk, later Hayastan, translated as the land of Haik, and consisting of the name of the ancient Mesopotamian god Haya (ha-ià) and the Persian suffix '-stan' ("land"). The historical enemy of Hayk, Hayastan, was Bel, or in other words Baal.
The Armenian Genocide, also known as the Armenian Holocaust, was the Ottoman government's systematic extermination of 1.5 million Armenians, mostly citizens within the Ottoman Empire. The starting date is conventionally held to be 24 April 1915, the day that Ottoman authorities rounded up, arrested, and deported from Constantinople to the region of Ankara 235 to 270 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders, the majority of whom were eventually murdered. The genocide was carried out during and after World War I and 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 the 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. Other ethnic groups were similarly targeted for extermination in the Assyrian genocide and the Greek genocide, and their treatment is considered by some historians to be part of the same genocidal policy. Most Armenian diaspora communities around the world came into being as a direct result of the genocide.
The Armenian diaspora refers to the communities of Armenians outside Armenia and other locations where Armenians are considered an indigenous population. Since antiquity, Armenians have established communities in many regions throughout the world. However, the modern Armenian diaspora was largely formed as a result of the Armenian Genocide of 1915, when the Armenians living in their ancestral homeland in eastern Turkey, known as Western Armenia to Armenians, were systematically exterminated by the Ottoman government.
The Armenian Apostolic Church is the national church of the Armenian people. Part of Oriental Orthodoxy, it is one of the most ancient Christian communities. The Kingdom of Armenia was the first state to adopt Christianity as its official religion under the rule of King Tiridates in the early 4th century. The church originated in the missions of Apostles Bartholomew and Thaddeus in the 1st century, according to tradition.
"Mer Hayrenik" is the national anthem of Armenia. Barsegh Kanachyan composed the music, while the lyrics were authored by Mikayel Nalbandian. First adopted in 1918 as the anthem of the short-lived First Republic of Armenia, it was subsequently banned after the country was invaded and incorporated into the Soviet Union. Following the dissolution of the USSR and the restoration of sovereignty in 1991, the song was re-adopted as the national anthem of the newly-independent state, albeit with slightly modified lyrics.
The Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF), also known as Dashnaktsutyun, is an Armenian nationalist and socialist political party founded in 1890 in Tiflis, Russian Empire by Christapor Mikaelian, Stepan Zorian, and Simon Zavarian. Today the party operates in Armenia, Artsakh and in countries where the Armenian diaspora is present. Nowadays it constitutes a minor party, and as of December 2018 was represented in two national parliaments with 7 seats in the National Assembly of Artsakh and three seats in the Parliament of Lebanon as part of the March 8 alliance.
The national flag of Armenia, the Armenian Tricolour, consists of three horizontal bands of equal width, red on the top, blue in the middle, and orange on the bottom. The Armenian Supreme Soviet adopted the current flag on 24 August 1990. On 15 June 2006, the Law on the National Flag of Armenia, governing its usage, was passed by the National Assembly of Armenia.
The Armenia national football team represents Armenia in association football and is controlled by the Football Federation of Armenia, the governing body for football in Armenia. After gaining independence from the Soviet Union, the team played its first international match on October 12, 1992. Armenia's home ground is the Republican Stadium in Yerevan. The national team has participated in the qualification of every major tournament from the UEFA Euro 1996 onwards, though they are yet to qualify for the knockout stage in either a UEFA European Football Championship or a FIFA World Cup. In what was the Armenian national squad's greatest success at present, the team came in third place in the UEFA Euro 2012 qualifying stage, with controversial officiating preventing them from achieving second place, and hence moving on to the play-off stage.
The Republic of Artsakh, or simply Artsakh, also known by its official name between 1991 and 2017, the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, is a de facto independent country in the South Caucasus that is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan. The region is currently populated mostly by Armenians and the primary spoken language is Armenian. Artsakh controls most of the territory of the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast and some of the surrounding area, giving it a border with Armenia to the west and Iran to the south. Its capital is Stepanakert.
The Football Federation of Armenia (FFA) is the governing body of association football in Armenia. It is based in Yerevan.
Armenia is subdivided into eleven administrative divisions. Of these, ten are provinces, known as marzer (մարզեր) or in the singular form marz (մարզ) in Armenian.
The First Republic of Armenia, officially known at the time of its existence as the Democratic Republic of Armenia, was the first modern Armenian state since the loss of Armenian statehood in the Middle Ages.
Armenian Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have total or partial Armenian ancestry. They form the second largest community of the Armenian diaspora after Armenians in Russia. The first major wave of Armenian immigration to the United States took place in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Thousands of Armenians settled in the United States following the Hamidian massacres of the mid-1890s, the Adana Massacre of 1909, and the Armenian Genocide of 1915 in the Ottoman Empire. Since the 1950s many Armenians from the Middle East migrated to America as a result of political instability in the region. It accelerated in the late 1980s and has continued after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 due to socio-economic and political reasons.
As of 2011, most Armenians are Christians (95.8%) and are members of Armenia's own church, the Armenian Apostolic Church, which is one of the oldest Christian churches. It was founded in the 1st century AD, and in 301 AD became the first branch of Christianity to become a state religion.
National Statistical Service of Republic of Armenia is the national statistical agency of Armenia.
The President of Armenia is the head of state and the guarantor of independence and territorial integrity of Armenia elected to a single seven year term by the National Assembly of Armenia. Under Armenia's parliamentary system, the President is simply a figurehead and holds ceremonial duties, with most of the political power vested in the Parliament and Prime Minister.
The Armenia Basketball League A, is the top men's official basketball league in Armenia. The first season of the competition was launched in 2017.
