Industrial city (tractor parts, machine tools, chemicals, bricks, bicycles, wine, fruit canning) and capital of Armenia, a few miles N of the Turkish border; It was founded in the 7th century and was alternately Turkish and Persian from the 15th century until ceded to Russia 1828. Armenia became an independent republic 1991.
Its university was founded 1921. The city has seen mounting inter-ethnic violence and Armenian nationalist demonstrations since 1988, fanned by the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute.