Armenia

From the kingdom of Urartu and the world's first Christian state through Ani and the genocide to a republic reborn in 1991.

Armenia occupies one of the oldest continuously inhabited corners of the world, the Armenian highlands south of the Caucasus, where the Iron Age kingdom of Urartu and later an Armenian kingdom that briefly stretched from the Caspian to the Mediterranean under Tigranes the Great took shape. Around 301 CE, under King Tiridates III and Gregory the Illuminator, Armenia became the first state to adopt Christianity as its religion, and a century later Mesrop Mashtots created the Armenian alphabet — twin pillars of a durable national identity preserved across centuries of foreign rule. Medieval Bagratid Armenia centred on the city of Ani, and a separate Armenian kingdom flourished in Cilicia, while monasteries such as Haghpat, Sanahin and Geghard now stand as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. After partition among Persian, Ottoman and Russian empires, Armenians endured the genocide of 1915, a short-lived First Republic (1918), Soviet rule, and finally independence on 21 September 1991 — followed by a long and unresolved conflict with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh.