Where is Armenia

Armenia is a landlocked country located in the northwest of the Armenian Highlands, just south of the Caucasus mountain range, at the crossroads of Eastern Europe and Western Asia.

It is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia to the north, Azerbaijan to the east, Iran to the south, and the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhichevan to the southwest.

(Nakhichevan was historically part of Armenia up to 1921 but transferred to Azerbaijan by the Bolsheviks. On March 16, 1921, Soviet Russia and Turkey signed an agreement in Moscow, according to which Nakhichevan was transferred to the guardianship of Soviet Azerbaijan. Before that, Nakhichevan was part of the First Republic of Armenia. From the point of view of international law, this was an absolutely illegal agreement. Two countries transferred the territory of a third state, which they themselves recognized as sovereign, to a fourth state, without their participation or even asking for their opinion).

 Satellite style map of Armenia by Maphill

Armenia covers 29,743 km² and has a population of about 3 million. The country is divided into 10 regions, with Yerevan—located in the northeastern part of the Ararat Plain along the Hrazdan River—as its capital and administrative center.

Yerevan was established in 782 BC, when King Argishti I of Urartu founded the fortress of Erebuni. Rome was founded in 753 BC, making Yerevan 29 years older. It is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world.

The Babylonian Map of the World (also Imago Mundi or Mappa mundi) is a Babylonian clay tablet with a schematic world map and two inscriptions written in the Akkadian language. In Yerevan, copies of this map can be found, with one located in Republic Square and another in Saryan Park.

Armenia is one of only three countries marked on the Babylonian Imago Mundi (Latin for “Image of the World”), the world’s oldest known map. This clay tablet dates to the 6th century BC and was likely based on an earlier 9th-century BC original. The region shown corresponds to Armenia, which at the time was known as Urartu. On the tablet itself, the name used is Urartu (Uraštu in Akkadian).

The Behistun Inscription is a multilingual Achaemenid royal inscription and large rock relief on a cliff at Mount Behistun in the Kermanshah Province of Iran. It utilizes three distinct languages written in cuneiform script

However, the Behistun Inscription, written shortly afterward, shows that Urartu in Babylonian and Armenia in Old Persian refer to the same place. The Behistun Inscription, carved around 520 BC by the Persian king Darius the Great, is often compared to the “Rosetta Stone” of Armenian history. It is a trilingual inscription, meaning the same text appears in Old Persian, Elamite, and Babylonian.

When the king describes the same region, he uses different names depending on the language:

• In Old Persian, he calls the country Armina, from which the name Armenia derives.

• In Babylonian, he calls the same land Urartu, the name also used on the Babylonian map.

• In Elamite, Armenia was written as Harminuya. The name sounds similar to Armenia or the Armenian Hayastan. Elamite was an ancient language isolate spoken in Elam (southwestern Iran).
  

The Persians—and later Greek authors such as Herodotus—used the name Armenia, while the Babylonians were more conservative. Even after the Kingdom of Urartu had evolved into Armenia, they continued to use the older name Urartu for this northern mountainous region.