Armenia , [ c ] officially the Republic of Armenia , [ d ] is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of West Asia. Armenia is a unitary , multi-party, democratic nation-state with an ancient cultural heritage.
The Kingdom of Armenia reached its height under Tigranes the Great in the 1st century BC and in the year became the first state in the world to adopt Christianity as its official religion. Under the Bagratuni dynasty , the Bagratid Kingdom of Armenia was restored in the 9th century before falling in Cilician Armenia , an Armenian principality and later a kingdom, was located on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea between the 11th and 14th centuries.
Between the 16th and 19th centuries, the traditional Armenian homeland composed of Eastern Armenia and Western Armenia came under the rule of the Ottoman and Persian empires, repeatedly ruled by either of the two over the centuries.
By the 19th century, Eastern Armenia had been conquered by the Russian Empire , while most of the western parts of the traditional Armenian homeland remained under Ottoman rule. During World War I , up to 1. In , following the Russian Revolution , all non-Russian countries declared their independence after the Russian Empire ceased to exist, leading to the establishment of the First Republic of Armenia.
The modern Republic of Armenia became independent in during the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Armenia is a developing country and ranks 76th on the Human Development Index as of While Armenia is geographically located in the South Caucasus , it is generally considered geopolitically European.
