Karabakh

Karabakh (Armenian: Ղարաբաղ Gharabagh or Արցախ, Artsakh; Azerbaijani: Qarabağ) is a geographic region in present-day eastern Armenia and southwestern Azerbaijan, extending from the highlands of the Lesser Caucasus down to the lowlands between the rivers Kura and Aras. It includes three regions: Highland Karabakh (historical Artsakh, present-day Nagorno-Karabakh), Lowland Karabakh (the southern Kura-steppes), and a part of Syunik.

The name "Karabakh" or "Gharabagh" is generally believed to originate from Turkic and Persian, literally meaning "black garden". An alternative theory, proposed by Bagrat Ulubabyan, is that it has a Turkic-Armenian origin, meaning "Greater Baghk", a reference to Ktish-Baghk (later: Dizak), one of the principalities of Artsakh during the eleventh to thirteenth centuries.

The placename is first mentioned in the Georgian Chronicles (Kartlis Tskhovreba), as well in Persian sources from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The name became common after the 1230s, when the region was conquered by the Mongols. The first time the name was mentioned in medieval Armenian sources was in the fifteenth century, in Tovma Metsop'etsi's History of Tamerlane and His Successors.

Lowland and Highland Karabakh, which was populated with various Caucasian tribes, were believed to have been conquered by Armenians in the second century B.C. and organized as the Artsakh province of the Kingdom of Armenia. However, it is possible that the region had earlier been part of Orontid Armenia from the fourth to second centuries B.C. After the partition of Armenia by Rome and Persia in 387 A.D., it became a part of the Caucasian Albanian satrapy of Sasanid Persia. The Arab invasions later led to the rise of several Armenian princes who came to establish their dominance in the region. Centuries of constant warfare on the Armenian Plateau forced many Armenians, including those in the Karabakh region, to emigrate and settle elsewhere. During the period of Mongol domination, a great number of Armenians left Lowland Karabakh and sought refuge in the mountainous (Highland) heights of the region.

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