Eastern Armenia in the context of "Armenian highlands"

The Armenian highlands (Armenian: Հայկական լեռնաշխարհ, romanized: Haykakan leṙnašxarh; also known as the Eastern Anatolian highlands, Armenian upland, Armenian plateau, or Armenian tableland) comprise the most central and the highest of the three plateaus that together form the northern sector of West Asia. Clockwise starting from the west, the Armenian highlands are bounded by the Anatolian plateau, the Caucasus, the Kura-Aras lowlands, the Iranian Plateau, and Mesopotamia. The highlands are divided into western and eastern regions, defined by the Ararat Valley where Mount Ararat is located. Since the turn of the 20th century, Western Armenia has been relabeled as "Eastern Anatolia" by Ottoman and Turkish authorities. Eastern Armenia is part of Lesser Caucasus, which was historically known by some as the Anti-Caucasus, meaning "opposite of the Caucasus".

During the Iron Age, the region was known by variations of the name Ararat (Urartu, Uruatri, Urashtu). Later, the Highlands were known as Armenia Major, a central region to the history of Armenians, and one of the four geopolitical regions associated with Armenians, the other three being Armenia Minor, Sophene, and Commagene. The highlands are primarily defined by the geographical dispersal of its native inhabitants, the Armenians. Prior to the appearance of nominally Armenian people in historical records, historians have hypothesized that the region must have been home to various ethnic groups who became homogenous when the Armenian language came to prominence. The population of the Armenian highlands has had a high level of regional genetic continuity for over 6,000 years. Recent studies indicate that the Armenian people descend from the indigenous people of the Armenian highlands and form a distinct genetic isolate in the region. The region was also inhabited during Antiquity by minorities such as Assyrians, Georgians, Greeks, Jews, and Iranians. During the Middle Ages, Arabs and particularly Turkmens and Kurds settled in large numbers in the Armenian highlands.

Western Armenia (Western Armenian: Արեւմտեան Հայաստան, Arevmdian Hayasdan) is a term to refer to the western parts of the Armenian highlands located within Turkey (formerly the Ottoman Empire) that comprise the historical homeland of the Armenians. Western Armenia, also referred to as Byzantine Armenia, emerged following the division of Greater Armenia between the Byzantine Empire (Western Armenia) and Sassanid Persia (Eastern Armenia) in AD 387.

The area was contested during the Ottoman–Persian Wars and was conquered by the Ottoman Empire during the wars of 1532–1555 and 1623–1639. The area then became known also as "Turkish Armenia" or "Ottoman Armenia", and included six vilayets. During the 19th century, the Russian Empire conquered sections of Western Armenia, including Kars.

The Armenian diaspora refers to the communities of Armenians outside Armenia and other locations where Armenians are considered to be indigenous. Since antiquity, Armenians have established communities in many regions throughout the world. The Armenian diaspora is one of the oldest and largest diasporas in the world, with the oldest community being the Armenian Quarter of Jerusalem.

The modern Armenian diaspora was largely formed as a result of World War I, when the genocide committed by the Ottoman Empire forced Armenians in Western Armenia to flee. Another wave of emigration from Eastern Armenia occurred in the 1990s amid the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Turkish-Azeri blockade of Armenia, and an energy crisis. The High Commissioner for Diaspora Affairs established in 2019 is in charge of coordinating and developing Armenia's relations with the diaspora. The vast majority of ethnic Armenians worldwide do not live in the Republic of Armenia, and has led to repatriation campaigns.

The Great Surgun (Armenian: Մեծ սուրգուն, the Great Exile) was the forced deportation of the population (mainly Armenians) from Eastern Armenia to the territory of the central and northern parts of Safavid Iran, which was carried out in 1604–1605 by the order of Shah Abbas the Great during the Ottoman–Safavid War (1603–1618).

Among the deported population (about 350,000 people), the largest number were Armenians. According to various estimates, the number of expelled Armenians ranged from 250,000 to 300,000 people.

The First Republic of Armenia, officially known at the time of its existence as the Republic of Armenia, was an independent Armenian state that existed from May (28th de jure, 30th de facto) 1918 to 2 December 1920 in the Armenian-populated territories of the former Russian Empire known as Eastern or Russian Armenia. The republic was established in May 1918, with its capital in the city of Yerevan, after the dissolution of the short-lived Transcaucasian Federation. It was the first Armenian state since the Middle Ages.

In its first year of independence, Armenia was confined to a small territory around Lake Sevan after its invasion by the Ottoman Empire during the Caucasus campaign. Following the Armistice of Mudros, Armenia expanded its borders in the wake of the Ottoman withdrawal, leading to a brief border war with neighbouring Georgia. During its first winter, hundreds of thousands of refugees in the country who had fled the Armenian genocide died from starvation or exposure. In the spring of 1919, Armenia, with British support, incorporated the formerly occupied regions of Kars and Nakhchivan, thereby tripling in size since independence; however, Armenian control of these regions collapsed during the Muslim uprisings that erupted in the summer of 1919.

Armenian genocide survivors were Armenians in the Ottoman Empire who survived the Armenian genocide. After the end of World War I, many tried to return home in Western Armenia but most were prevented by the Turkish nationalist movement which considered Armenian survivors to be a mortal threat to the Turkish state. Thousands of Armenians who tried to return were killed.

Roughly half of the survivors fled to neighboring countries in the Middle East with the other half fleeing to Eastern Armenia which later became the First Republic of Armenia. A further wave of Armenian refugees was created by the Turkey's invasion of the new Armenian Republic, and another 100,000 Armenians were uprooted from their homes in Cilicia following the French withdrawal in 1920. Between 1922 and 1929, the Turkish authorities eliminated surviving Armenians from southern Turkey, expelling thousands to French-mandate Syria. Fearing renewed persecution, the last Armenian communities of Cilicia fled after France ceded the territory to Turkey in 1939.