Western Armenia in the context of "Armenia–Turkey border"

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.

Armenians in Turkey (Turkish: Türkiye Ermenileri; Armenian: Թուրքահայեր or Թրքահայեր, T’urk’ahayer lit. 'Turkish Armenians'), one of the indigenous peoples of Turkey, have an estimated population of 40,000 to 50,000 today, down from a population of almost 2 million Armenians between the years 1914 and 1921. Today, the overwhelming majority of Turkish Armenians are concentrated in Istanbul. They support their own newspapers, churches and schools, and the majority belong to the Armenian Apostolic faith and a minority of Armenians in Turkey belong to the Armenian Catholic Church or to the Armenian Evangelical Church. They are not considered part of the Armenian diaspora, since they have been living in their historical homeland for more than four thousand years.

Until the Armenian genocide of 1915, most of the Armenian population of Turkey (then the Ottoman Empire) lived in the eastern parts of the country that Armenians call Western Armenia (roughly corresponding to the modern Eastern Anatolia region).

Armenians (Armenian: հայեր, romanized: hayer, [hɑˈjɛɾ]) are an ethnic group indigenous to the Armenian highlands of West Asia. Armenians constitute the main demographic group in Armenia and constituted the main population of the breakaway Republic of Artsakh until their subsequent flight due to the 2023 Azerbaijani offensive. There is a large diaspora of around five million people of Armenian ancestry living outside the Republic of Armenia. The largest Armenian populations exist in Russia, the United States, France, Georgia, Iran, Germany, Ukraine, Lebanon, Brazil, Argentina, Syria, and Turkey. The present-day Armenian diaspora was formed mainly as a result of the Armenian genocide with the exceptions of Iran, former Soviet states, and parts of the Levant.

Armenian is an Indo-European language. It has two mutually intelligible spoken and written forms: Eastern Armenian, today spoken mainly in Armenia, Artsakh, Iran, and the former Soviet republics; and Western Armenian, used in the historical Western Armenia and, after the Armenian genocide, primarily in the Armenian diasporan communities. The unique Armenian alphabet was invented in 405 AD by Mesrop Mashtots.

Eastern Armenia (Armenian: Արևելյան Հայաստան, Arevelyan Hayastan) is the eastern portion of the Armenian Highlands, historically inhabited by the Armenian people. Throughout history, Eastern Armenia has been contested and ruled by various foreign powers, including the Sasanian, Arab Caliphates, Safavid and Qajar Persia, the Russian Empire, and the Soviet Union. Today, it forms the core of the independent Republic of Armenia and comprises about 10% of the Armenian homeland today.

The term gained more precise meaning after the 17th century, particularly following the Treaty of Zuhab (1639), which formalized the division of Armenian territories between the Ottoman Empire (Western Armenia) and Persia (Eastern Armenia). This distinction was reinforced in the 19th century with the Russian Empire’s annexation of Persian-controlled Eastern Armenian lands.

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.

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.