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Is Azerbaijan part of Asia or Europe?
Azerbaijan, officially the Republic of Azerbaijan (in Azeri, Azärbaycan Respublikasi), is a state of Western Asia, located in Eastern Transcaucasia. Azerbaijan is bounded to the north by Russia, to the northwest by Georgia, to the west by Armenia, to the south by Iran and to the east by the Caspian Sea. It is a former Soviet republic.
The country covers an area of 86,600 km2. Its capital is Baku. In principle, Azerbaijan has an autonomous republic (Nakhchivan) and an autonomous region (Nagorno-Karabakh). Located between Armenia and Iran, the Autonomous Republic of Nakhchivan (5500 km2) is separated from the rest of Azerbaijan by a narrow portion of Armenian territory. This isolation of the Autonomous Republic of Nakhchivan (in Azeri: Naxçıvan) from Azerbaijan dates back to 1924, when Joseph Stalin transferred this province under Azerbaijani control, although it had always been part of historical Armenia under the name of Vaspurakan.
As for the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region (4400 km2), it constitutes an Armenian-speaking enclave in the west of Azerbaijan. The breakup of the USSR in 1991 brought about the independence of Azerbaijan and Armenia, but also of the self-proclaimed Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, which had led Azerbaijan to repeal the statute of autonomy of the autonomous region.
However, on January 20, 1990, Nakhchivan proclaimed its “total” independence. For its part, on September 2, 1991, Nagorno-Karabakh unilaterally declared its independence from Azerbaijan. In short, Nakhchivan and Nagorno-Karabakh are “unrecognized countries” because they are de facto independent.
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