Armenia (
Armenian
:
Հայաստան
Hayastan
), officially in English the Republic of Armenia, is a
landlocked
mountainous country in
Eurasia
between the
Black Sea
and the
Caspian Sea
in the
Southern Caucasus
. It borders
Turkey
to the west,
Georgia
to the north,
Azerbaijan
to the east, and
Iran
and the
Nakhchivan
exclave
of Azerbaijan to the south. A
transcontinental country
at the juncture of
Eastern Europe
and
Western Asia
, Armenia has had and continues to have extensive sociopolitical and cultural connections with Europe.
A former republic of the
Soviet Union
, Armenia is a
unitary
,
multiparty
,
democratic
nation-state
with an ancient and historic cultural heritage. The
Kingdom of Armenia
was the first state to adopt
Christianity
as its religion
in the early years of the th century (the traditional date is ).
The modern Republic of Armenia is constitutionally a secular state, although the Christian faith plays a major role in the history and identification of the Armenian people.
Armenia is currently a member of more than different international organisations, including the
United Nations
, the
Council of Europe
, the
Asian Development Bank
, the
Commonwealth of Independent States
, the
World Trade Organisation
and the
Organisation of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation
. It is a Partnership for Peace (
PfP
) member of
NATO
and also a member of the
CSTO
military alliance. It is also an observer member of the
Eurasian Economic Community
,
La Francophonie
, and the
Non-Aligned Movement
.
Armenia is also active in the international sports community with full membership in the
Union of European Football Associations
and
International Ice Hockey Federation
. The country is an emerging
democracy
and, because of its strategic location, lies among both the
Russian
and
Western
spheres of influence
. |