Yerevan

Yerevan (also Erivan or Erevan), capital and largest city of Armenia, on the River Hrazdan near Turkey. Situated in a scenic region noted for its orchards and vineyards, the city is an industrial, transport, and cultural centre. Factories here produce chemicals, primary metals, machinery, rubber, plastics, textiles, and processed food. A centre of Armenian culture, Yerevan is the site of Yerevan State University (1920), the Armenian Academy of Sciences, a historical museum, an opera house, a music conservatory, and several technical institutes. The Matenadaran archives hold a rich collection of valuable ancient Armenian manuscripts. Yerevan has several large public libraries, a number of museums and theatres, and botanical and zoological gardens. Yerevan is also the site of the ruins of a Roman fort, of a 16th-century Turkish fort, and of an 18th-century mosque.

Archaeologists have uncovered the remains of an Urartu fortress and a city built on the site of Yerevan in the 8th century bc. After being controlled, at various times, by the Romans, Parthians, Arabs, and others, the city was incorporated into the empire of the Mongol conqueror Tamerlane in 1387. In the 15th century Yerevan came under Persian rule, and from the 16th to 18th century it passed back and forth between Persia and Turkey. In 1827 it was captured from Persia by Russia. Yerevan was the capital of independent Armenia from 1918 to 1920 and of Soviet Armenia from 1920 to 1991. Population 1,250,000 (2000 estimate).