Ararat Province

Ararat ( [ɑɾɑˈɾɑt], Armenian Արարատի մարզ, Ararati marz, "Ararat Province") is a province in central Armenia with Artashat as its provincial capital. The province has an area of 2096 km² and a population of 246,880 (as of 2011). It is located east of Mount Ararat, which is located in Turkey, and is named after it.

The Old Testament name Ararat referred to the Urartian Empire (from Assyrian Urartu) and apparently corresponds to the Old Armenian name Airarat, used until the Middle Ages, for the Araxes plain.

The province borders Turkey to the west and the Autonomous Republic of Nakhichevan, part of Azerbaijan, to the south. The province also includes Kərki, the exclave of Nakhichevan seized by Armenia in 1992.

Other towns besides Artashat are Ararat and the former urban-type settlements of Masis and Wedi, which were elevated to towns in the 1990s. In addition to these three urban municipalities, there are 93 rural municipalities with a total of 95 villages; the largest villages (each with over 4,000 inhabitants) are Ajntap, Ararat (not far from the city of the same name, but independent), Awshar, Mkhchyan, Nor Charberd (until the 1990s also an urban-type settlement) and Vosketap (as of 2011).

The province was formed during the administrative reorganization within the framework of decentralization in 1995 from the rajons Ararat, Artashat and Massis, which had existed in the Armenian SSR of the Soviet Union since 1930/37, as well as the rajon-free cities of Ararat and Artashat.

Administration breakdown

The Armenian province of Ararat contains 95 municipalities, of which four are urban and 91 are rural:

Rural communities and contained settlements: