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Yerevan: population and brief history of the city

The largest city of Armenia and one of the oldestCities of the world today has more than a million inhabitants. His name was connected then with the tribe that once lived on these lands, then with the names of the rulers, if not with the legend of the flood. Legend has it that the notorious Noah cried out: “Yerevats!”, Which means “She appeared!”, Barely seeing the land and the fact that the flood waters are moving away. The event took place just at the place where the capital of Armenia is now. Anyway, the population of Yerevan has been creating the history of the city for more than one thousand years.

Foundation of the fortress of Erebuni

The date of foundation of the city-fortress of Erebuni onThe left bank of the Ararat Plain (along the Araks River) is considered 782 BC. King of Urartu - an ancient state located within the borders of today's Armenia, eastern Turkey, northwestern part of Iran and the autonomous republic of Azerbaijan, Argishti I, in the fifth year of his reign, founded a new settlement, which was later used as a base for trekking to the Lake Sevan and protection of the Ararat plain. The ruins of the fortress, according to legends, which became the home of the biblical Noah and his family, both before the flood and after, were discovered in the south-western part of the modern city called Yerevan.

Население крепости в конце восьмого века до нашей the eras were mostly prisoners (under a different version - warriors) from the western regions of the Armenian Highlands, who, in fact, were engaged in work related to the founding of the city. A memorable record of this is left in the stone on the hill and in the annals. The population of Yerevan at that time was 6,600 people. After some time, the fortress was defeated, after which there are no written certificates about the city. It is known that in the third century BC, Yerevan, whose population then belonged to the Christian or Manichaean community, continued to exist under the authority of a certain “sovereign”.

Mention in the "Book of letters"

Medieval Yerevan found itself in the zone of endlessIranian-Byzantine Wars and became the site of periodic uprisings of the local population. At the same time, the first mention of the city in Armenian sources - the “Book of Letters” - is revealed. In addition, it is known that in the fourteenth century the population of the city was about fifteen to twenty thousand people, and Yerevan itself was an important cultural center. True, after the defeat of Tamerlane, the number of the local population was significantly reduced, and some buildings, which today would become historical monuments, were destroyed.

Arena Ottoman-Safavid Wars

A major impact on the demographic situation inthe region and the national composition of the population had devastating wars between the Ottoman Empire and the Safavids, as well as the nomads, whom the local rulers used to sow hostility and weaken the locals. The Armenian population was significantly reduced, and in 1580 Ottoman troops almost destroyed the city and captured 60,000 Muslims and Christians.

The alternating power ordered to withdraw allthe local population in Persia, so that the Ottomans came to a deserted country, then simply burned everything in their path, then settled the territory with tribes of nomads. For example, in the sixteenth century Yerevan (the population was just nomadic tribes), Karabakh and Ganja took fifty thousand families, and soon the number of inhabitants multiplied several times.

As a result of long wars and generalinstability in the region in 1804 there were only about six thousand people living in the city. However, after twenty years the population was already more than twenty thousand people.

Erivan Province

First documented numbers andThe national composition of the population of Yerevan appeared in the first half of the nineteenth century, when the city became the capital of the Armenian region within the Russian Empire (the Yerevan, or Erivan, province was formed with the center in the city of Yerevan). The population (the nationality of the current residents of the city will be discussed below) then largely moved to Persia, so the number of local residents decreased, reaching 11,3 thousand people in 1833.

According to the national composition, the population of the city (according to data for 1829) was divided as follows:

Armenians accounted for 36% of local residents;
almost 64% of citizens were Azeris;
There were no Russians, Yezidis, or Kurds in the city at all.

By the beginning of the twentieth century, the population of Yerevanincreased to nearly thirty thousand inhabitants. Significantly changed the national composition. In 1897, there were 43% Armenians, 42% of Azerbaijanis, 9.5% of Russians, 0.22% of Yezidis and Kurds, and 4.5% of other nationalities.

In the Russian Empire and with the statusthe provincial city of Yerevan retained the appearance of a provincial settlement. Production facilities were represented by several local factories, brick and brandy factories, and one- and two-story clay houses stretched along the narrow streets.

Yerevan as part of the Soviet Union

With the establishment of Soviet power, Yerevan becomes the capital of the Republic of Armenia. Immediately began a large-scale reconstruction of the city:

electricity, plumbing and sewage were carried out;
almost all the buildings built earlier were destroyed;
new streets were laid and forest belts were organized that protected the city from dust storms;
cultural objects were erected: theaters, a repository of ancient manuscripts, museums and monuments.

In those years, Yerevan was actively developing.Population, the number of which is growing rapidly, has become nationally-oriented. So, if at the beginning of the twentieth century, 43% of the townspeople were Armenians, by 1959 their number had increased to 93%. In the same year, the total population of Yerevan was half a million people.

Current population

Неумолимому времени не удалось стереть город с faces of the earth - today the capital of independent Armenia is Yerevan. The population of the largest city of the republic has more than a million people, which is one third of all residents of the state. More than 64% of the citizens of Armenia (the population of Armenia is about three million people) live in large cities (Yerevan, Gyumri and Vanadzor), so the country has a high level of urbanization. Half of the urban population lives directly in Yerevan.