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For other uses of "Karabakh", see Karabakh (disambiguation).  Karabakh (Armenian: Ղարաբաղ ; Azerbaijani: Qarabağ) is a geographic region in present-day southwestern Azerbaijan and eastern Armenia, extending from the highlands of the Lesser Caucasus down to the lowlands between the rivers Kura and Aras. It includes three regions: Highland Karabakh (the ancient Armenian province of Artsakh, and later the kingdom of Caucasian Albania; now present-day Nagorno-Karabakh),[1] Lowland Karabakh (the southern Kura-steppes) and a part of Syunik.[2][3][4][5]
[edit] Origins of the name The word "Karabakh" is generally held to originate from Turkic and Persian, and literally means "black garden".[6] The placename is first mentioned in the Georgian Chronicles (Kartlis Tskhovreba), as well in Persian sources from the 13th and 14th centuries.[7] The name became common after the 1230s, when the region was conquered by the Mongols.[8] The first time the name was mentioned in medieval Armenian sources was in the fifteenth century, in Tovma Metsopetsi's History of Tamerlane and His Successors.[7] [edit] History
Main article: History of Nagorno-Karabakh Lowland and Highland Karabakh populated with various Caucasian tribes were conquered by Armenians in the 2nd century B.C. and became the Artsakh province of the Kingdom of Armenia, and after the 387 A.D. partition of Armenia, passed to the kingdom of Caucasian Albania. The Arab invasions later saw the rise of several Armenian princes who came to establish their dominance in the region.[9] In the 15th century the German traveler Johann Schiltberger toured Lowland Karabakh and described it as a large and beautiful plain in Armenia.[10] Highland Karabakh (Russian: Nagorno-Karabakh) or Artsakh was from 821 till the early 19th century ruled by the Armenian House of Khachen and its several lines, the latter Melikdoms of Karabakh.[9] In 1747, Panah Javanshir, a local Turkoman chieftain, seized control of the region after the death of the Persian ruler Nadir Shah, and both Lower Karabakh and Highland Karabakh comprised the new Karabakh khanate.[9] Nevertheless Highland Karabakh was still ruled by its own hereditary princes, known as meliks, until the Russian annexation of the region in 1805.[9] Under Russian rule Karabakh (Lowland and Highland) was a region with an area of 13,600 km2 (5,250 sq mi), and Shusha or Shushi was its capital city. Its population consisted of Armenians and Muslim in nearly equal numbers: Highland Karabakh was almost wholly Armenian in population whereas Lowland Karabakh was almost entirely Muslim.[9] In 1923 part of Highland Karabakh was established as an Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast within the Azerbaijan SSR.[5][9] The local government of Nagorno-Karabakh and that of Shahumian declared its independence from the Azerbaijan SSR in 1991 as the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, which remains unrecognized worldwide. Portions of the lowland Karabakh have been controlled by Armenian forces since the Nagorno-Karabakh War ended in 1994. [edit] Karabakh dialectThe Armenian population of the region speaks the Karabakh dialect; this dialect has been heavily influenced by the Persian, Russian, and Turkish languages.[11] It was the most extensively spoken of all Armenian dialects until the Soviet period when the dialect of Yerevan became the official tongue of the Armenian SSR [5]. [edit] Notes
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