Gegharkunik Province

Gegharkunik ( [ɡɛʁɑɾkʰuˈnikʰ], Armenian Գեղարքունիք, in scientific transliteration Gełark'yownik') is one of the provinces of Armenia.

Gegharkunik is located in the east of the country on the border with Azerbaijan. Lake Sevan occupies about a quarter of the province's area (940 km² out of 3655 km²). The province has 211,828 inhabitants (as of 2011). The capital is Gavar.

Other towns besides Gavar are Sevan and the former urban-type settlements of Martuni, Chambarak (previously Krasnoselsk) and Vardenis, which were elevated to towns in the 1990s. In addition to these five urban municipalities, there are 87 rural municipalities with a total of 93 villages; the largest villages (with over 5000 inhabitants each) are Geghhowit, Nerkin Getaschen, Noratus, Saruchan, Solakar, and Vardenik (as of 2011). Until the 1990s, there was another settlement of urban type, Gagarin, which was then downgraded to a village in the municipality of Sevan.

The northeastern exclave of Arzvashen has been occupied by Azerbaijan since 1992 in the course of the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh.

In the province lies the ruined monastery of Wanewan.

History

In Urartian times the area probably belonged to the kingdom of Ueliḫi, which, according to the Nor Bayazet inscription, was subjugated by Rusa I.

During Armenia's affiliation with the Russian Empire and the early years of the Soviet Union, it largely corresponded to the Ujesd Nowo-Bajaset (Armenian Նոր Բայազետ, Nor Bajaset, name of the city of Gawar until 1959) of the Yerevan Governorate.

The present province was formed during the administrative reorganization within the framework of decentralization in Armenia in 1995 from the rajons Kamo, Krasnoselsk, Martuni, Sevan and Vardenis, which had existed there since 1930/37 in the Armenian SSR of the Soviet Union, as well as the rajon-free cities of Sevan and Gavar.