Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a
transcontinental
Transcontinental may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* "Transcontinental", a song by the band Pedro the Lion from the album ''Achilles Heel''
* TC Transcontinental, a publishing, media and marketing company based in Canada, a subsidiary o ...
country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of the
South Caucasus
The South Caucasus, also known as Transcaucasia or the Transcaucasus, is a geographical region on the border of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, straddling the southern Caucasus Mountains. The South Caucasus roughly corresponds to modern Arme ...
region and is bounded by the
Caspian Sea
The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, often described as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia; east of the Caucasus, west of the broad steppe of Central Asia ...
to the east,
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
(
Republic of Dagestan) to the north,
Georgia to the northwest,
Armenia
Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ''Ox ...
and
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
to the west, and
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
to the south.
Baku
Baku (, ; az, Bakı ) is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. Baku is located below sea level, which makes it the lowest lying national capital in the world a ...
is the capital and largest city.
The
Azerbaijan Democratic Republic proclaimed its independence from the
Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic
The Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic (TDFR; (), (). 22 April – 28 May 1918) was a short-lived state in the Caucasus that included most of the territory of the present-day Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, as well as pa ...
in 1918 and became the first
secular democratic
Muslim-majority
The terms Muslim world and Islamic world commonly refer to the Islamic community, which is also known as the Ummah. This consists of all those who adhere to the religious beliefs and laws of Islam or to societies in which Islam is practiced. In ...
state. In 1920, the country was incorporated into the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
as the
Azerbaijan SSR
Azerbaijan ( az, Азәрбајҹан, Azərbaycan, italics=no), officially the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic (Azerbaijan SSR; az, Азәрбајҹан Совет Сосиалист Республикасы, Azərbaycan Sovet Sosialist R ...
.
The modern Republic of Azerbaijan proclaimed its independence on 30 August 1991, shortly before the
dissolution of the Soviet Union
The dissolution of the Soviet Union, also negatively connoted as rus, Разва́л Сове́тского Сою́за, r=Razvál Sovétskogo Soyúza, ''Ruining of the Soviet Union''. was the process of internal disintegration within the Sov ...
in the same year. In September 1991, the ethnic
Armenian
Armenian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent
** Armenian Diaspora, Armenian communities across the ...
majority of the
Nagorno-Karabakh region formed the self-proclaimed
Republic of Artsakh
Artsakh, officially the Republic of Artsakh () or the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (),, is a list of states with limited recognition, breakaway state in the South Caucasus whose territory is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan ...
. The region and
seven surrounding districts are internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan pending a solution to the status of the Nagorno-Karabakh through negotiations facilitated by the
OSCE, although became ''de facto'' independent with the end of the
First Nagorno-Karabakh War
The First Nagorno-Karabakh War, referred to in Armenia as the Artsakh Liberation War ( hy, Արցախյան ազատամարտ, Artsakhyan azatamart) was an ethnic and territorial conflict that took place from February 1988 to May 1994, in th ...
in 1994. Following the
Second Nagorno-Karabakh War
The Second Nagorno-Karabakh War was an armed conflict in 2020 that took place in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding territories. It was a major escalation of an unresolved conflict over the region, involving Azerbai ...
in 2020, the seven districts and parts of
Nagorno-Karabakh were returned to Azerbaijani control.
Azerbaijan is a
unitary
Unitary may refer to:
Mathematics
* Unitary divisor
* Unitary element
* Unitary group
* Unitary matrix
* Unitary morphism
* Unitary operator
* Unitary transformation
* Unitary representation
* Unitarity (physics)
* ''E''-unitary inverse semigroup ...
semi-presidential republic
A republic () is a "state in which power rests with the people or their representatives; specifically a state without a monarchy" and also a "government, or system of government, of such a state." Previously, especially in the 17th and 18th c ...
.
It is one of six independent
Turkic states
The following is a list of dynasties, states or empires which are Turkic-speaking, of Turkic origins, or both. There are currently six recognised Turkic sovereign states. Additionally, there are six federal subjects of Russia in which a Turkic l ...
and an active member of the
Organization of Turkic States
The Organization of Turkic States (OTS), formerly called the Turkic Council or the Cooperation Council of Turkic Speaking States, is an international organization comprising prominent independent Turkic countries: Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzs ...
and the
TÜRKSOY
The International Organization of Turkic Culture tr, Uluslararası Türk Kültürü Teşkilatı or TURKSOY is an international cultural organization of countries with Turkic populations, speaking languages belonging to the Turkic language fami ...
community. Azerbaijan has diplomatic relations with 182 countries and holds membership in 38 international organizations,
including the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
, the
Council of Europe
The Council of Europe (CoE; french: Conseil de l'Europe, ) is an international organisation founded in the wake of World War II to uphold European Convention on Human Rights, human rights, democracy and the Law in Europe, rule of law in Europe. ...
, the
Non-Aligned Movement
The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) is a forum of 120 countries that are not formally aligned with or against any major power bloc. After the United Nations, it is the largest grouping of states worldwide.
The movement originated in the aftermath o ...
, the
OSCE, and the
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
PfP program. It is one of the founding members of
GUAM
Guam (; ch, Guåhan ) is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the western Pacific Ocean. It is the westernmost point and territory of the United States (reckoned from the geographic cent ...
, the
CIS
Cis or cis- may refer to:
Places
* Cis, Trentino, in Italy
* In Poland:
** Cis, Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, south-central
** Cis, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, north
Math, science and biology
* cis (mathematics) (cis(''θ'')), a trigonome ...
, and the
OPCW
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is an intergovernmental organisation and the implementing body for the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), which entered into force on 29 April 1997. The OPCW, with its 193 member ...
. Azerbaijan is also an observer state of the
WTO
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an intergovernmental organization that regulates and facilitates international trade. With effective cooperation
in the United Nations System, governments use the organization to establish, revise, and e ...
.
The vast majority of the country's population (97%) is
nominally Muslim, but the
constitution
A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of Legal entity, entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed.
When ...
does not declare an official religion and all major political forces in the country are
secularist
Secularism is the principle of seeking to conduct human affairs based on secular, naturalistic considerations.
Secularism is most commonly defined as the separation of religion from civil affairs and the state, and may be broadened to a sim ...
. Azerbaijan is a
developing country
A developing country is a sovereign state with a lesser developed industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is also no clear agreem ...
and ranks 88th on the
Human Development Index
The Human Development Index (HDI) is a statistic composite index of life expectancy, education (mean years of schooling completed and expected years of schooling upon entering the education system), and per capita income indicators, whi ...
. It has a high rate of
economic development
In the economics study of the public sector, economic and social development is the process by which the economic well-being and quality of life of a nation, region, local community, or an individual are improved according to targeted goals and o ...
,
literacy
Literacy in its broadest sense describes "particular ways of thinking about and doing reading and writing" with the purpose of understanding or expressing thoughts or ideas in written form in some specific context of use. In other words, huma ...
, and a low rate of
unemployment
Unemployment, according to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), is people above a specified age (usually 15) not being in paid employment or self-employment but currently available for Work (human activity), w ...
. However, the ruling
New Azerbaijan Party
The New Azerbaijan Party ( az, Yeni Azərbaycan Partiyası, YAP) is the ruling political party in Azerbaijan, founded on 21 November 1992 under the leadership of Heydar Aliyev. After his election as President of Azerbaijan on 3 October 1993, and ...
, in power since 1993, has been accused of
authoritarian
Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political ''status quo'', and reductions in the rule of law, separation of powers, and democratic votin ...
leadership under the leadership of both
Heydar Aliyev
Heydar Alirza oghlu Aliyev ( az, Һејдәр Әлирза оғлу Әлијев, italic=no, Heydər Əlirza oğlu Əliyev, ; , ; 10 May 1923 – 12 December 2003) was a Soviet and Azerbaijani politician who served as the third president of Aze ...
and his son
Ilham Aliyev
Ilham Heydar oghlu Aliyev ( az, İlham Heydər oğlu Əliyev, ; born 24 December 1961) is the fourth president of Azerbaijan, serving in the post since 31 October 2003.
The son and second child of the former Azerbaijani leader Heydar Aliyev, ...
, and deteriorating the country's
human rights record, including increasing restrictions on civil liberties, particularly on
press freedom
Freedom of the press or freedom of the media is the fundamental principle that communication and expression through various media, including printed and electronic media, especially published materials, should be considered a right to be exerci ...
and political repression.
Etymology
According to a modern etymology, the term ''Azerbaijan'' derives from that of ''
Atropates'',
a
Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
satrap
A satrap () was a governor of the provinces of the ancient Median and Achaemenid Empires and in several of their successors, such as in the Sasanian Empire and the Hellenistic empires.
The satrap served as viceroy to the king, though with consid ...
under the
Achaemenid Empire
The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Based in Western Asia, it was contemporarily the largest em ...
, who was later reinstated as the satrap of
Media under
Alexander the Great
Alexander III of Macedon ( grc, wikt:Ἀλέξανδρος, Ἀλέξανδρος, Alexandros; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Maced ...
.
[Nevertheless, "despite being one of the chief vassals of Sasanian '' Shahanshah'', the Albanian king had only a semblance of authority, and the Sassanid marzban (military governor) held most civil, religious, and military authority.] The original etymology of this name is thought to have its roots in the once-dominant
Zoroastrianism
Zoroastrianism is an Iranian religions, Iranian religion and one of the world's History of religion, oldest organized faiths, based on the teachings of the Iranian peoples, Iranian-speaking prophet Zoroaster. It has a Dualism in cosmology, du ...
. In the
Avesta's ''Frawardin
Yasht'' ("Hymn to the Guardian Angels"), there is a mention of , which literally translates from
Avestan
Avestan (), or historically Zend, is an umbrella term for two Old Iranian languages: Old Avestan (spoken in the 2nd millennium BCE) and Younger Avestan (spoken in the 1st millennium BCE). They are known only from their conjoined use as the scrip ...
as "we worship the
fravashi of the holy
Atropatene". The name "Atropates" itself is the Greek transliteration of an Old Iranian, probably
Median
In statistics and probability theory, the median is the value separating the higher half from the lower half of a data sample, a population, or a probability distribution. For a data set, it may be thought of as "the middle" value. The basic fe ...
, compounded name with the meaning "Protected by the (Holy) Fire" or "The Land of the (Holy) Fire".
The Greek name was mentioned by
Diodorus Siculus
Diodorus Siculus, or Diodorus of Sicily ( grc-gre, Διόδωρος ; 1st century BC), was an ancient Greek historian. He is known for writing the monumental universal history ''Bibliotheca historica'', in forty books, fifteen of which su ...
and
Strabo
Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called "Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-sighted that he could see ...
. Over the span of millennia, the name evolved to (
Middle Persian
Middle Persian or Pahlavi, also known by its endonym Pārsīk or Pārsīg () in its later form, is a Western Middle Iranian language which became the literary language of the Sasanian Empire. For some time after the Sasanian collapse, Middle Per ...
), then to , , (New Persian) and present-day ''Azerbaijan''.
The name ''Azerbaijan'' was first adopted for the area of the present-day Republic of Azerbaijan by the government of
Musavat in 1918,
after the
collapse of the Russian Empire, when the independent
Azerbaijan Democratic Republic was established. Until then, the designation had been used exclusively to identify the
adjacent region of contemporary northwestern Iran,
while the area of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic was formerly referred to as ''
Arran'' and ''
Shirvan''. On that basis Iran protested the newly adopted country name.
During the Soviet rule, the country was also spelled in Latin from the
Russian transliteration
The romanization of the Russian language (the transliteration of Russian text from the Cyrillic script into the Latin script), aside from its primary use for including Russian names and words in text written in a Latin alphabet, is also essential ...
as ' ( rus, Азербайджа́н). The country's name was also spelled in Cyrillic script from 1940 to 1991 as '.
History
Antiquity
![Ancient Azerbaijan 4](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/Ancient_Azerbaijan_4.jpg)
The earliest evidence of human settlement in the territory of Azerbaijan dates back to the late
Stone Age
The Stone Age was a broad prehistoric period during which stone was widely used to make tools with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted for roughly 3.4 million years, and ended between 4,000 BC and 2,000 BC, with t ...
and is related to the
Guruchay culture
Gobustan State Historical and Cultural Reserve ( az, Qobustan dövlət tarixi-bədii qoruğu) is located west of the settlement of Gobustan, about southwest of the centre of Baku. It was established in 1966, when the area was declared a national ...
of
Azykh Cave.
Early settlements included the
Scythia
Scythia (Scythian: ; Old Persian: ; Ancient Greek: ; Latin: ) or Scythica (Ancient Greek: ; Latin: ), also known as Pontic Scythia, was a kingdom created by the Scythians during the 6th to 3rd centuries BC in the Pontic–Caspian steppe.
His ...
ns during the 9th century BC.
Following the Scythians, Iranian
Medes
The Medes (Old Persian: ; Akkadian: , ; Ancient Greek: ; Latin: ) were an ancient Iranian people who spoke the Median language and who inhabited an area known as Media between western and northern Iran. Around the 11th century BC, the ...
came to dominate the area to the south of the
Aras river.
The Medes forged a vast empire between 900 and 700 BC, which was integrated into the
Achaemenid Empire
The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Based in Western Asia, it was contemporarily the largest em ...
around 550 BC. The area was conquered by the Achaemenids leading to the spread of
Zoroastrianism
Zoroastrianism is an Iranian religions, Iranian religion and one of the world's History of religion, oldest organized faiths, based on the teachings of the Iranian peoples, Iranian-speaking prophet Zoroaster. It has a Dualism in cosmology, du ...
.
From the Sasanid period to the Safavid period
The
Sasanian Empire
The Sasanian () or Sassanid Empire, officially known as the Empire of Iranians (, ) and also referred to by historians as the Neo-Persian Empire, was the History of Iran, last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th-8th cen ...
turned
Caucasian Albania
Caucasian Albania is a modern exonym for a former state located in ancient times in the Caucasus: mostly in what is now Azerbaijan (where both of its capitals were located). The modern endonyms for the area are ''Aghwank'' and ''Aluank'', among ...
into a
vassal state
A vassal state is any state that has a mutual obligation to a superior state or empire, in a status similar to that of a vassal in the feudal system in medieval Europe. Vassal states were common among the empires of the Near East, dating back to ...
in 252, while King
Urnayr officially adopted Christianity as the state religion in the 4th century. Despite Sassanid rule,
Albania
Albania ( ; sq, Shqipëri or ), or , also or . officially the Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika e Shqipërisë), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is located on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea and shares ...
remained an entity in the region until the 9th century, while fully subordinate to Sassanid Iran, and retained its monarchy. Despite being one of the chief vassals of the Sasanian emperor, the Albanian king had only a semblance of authority, and the Sasanian
marzban (military governor) held most civil, religious, and military authority.
In the first half of the 7th century,
Caucasian Albania
Caucasian Albania is a modern exonym for a former state located in ancient times in the Caucasus: mostly in what is now Azerbaijan (where both of its capitals were located). The modern endonyms for the area are ''Aghwank'' and ''Aluank'', among ...
, as a vassal of the Sasanians, came under nominal Muslim rule due to the
Muslim conquest of Persia
The Muslim conquest of Persia, also known as the Arab conquest of Iran, was carried out by the Rashidun Caliphate from 633 to 654 AD and led to the fall of the Sasanian Empire as well as the eventual decline of the Zoroastrian religion.
Th ...
. The
Umayyad Caliphate
The Umayyad Caliphate (661–750 CE; , ; ar, ٱلْخِلَافَة ٱلْأُمَوِيَّة, al-Khilāfah al-ʾUmawīyah) was the second of the four major caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. The caliphate was ruled by th ...
repulsed both the Sasanians and
Byzantines from the
South Caucasus
The South Caucasus, also known as Transcaucasia or the Transcaucasus, is a geographical region on the border of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, straddling the southern Caucasus Mountains. The South Caucasus roughly corresponds to modern Arme ...
and turned
Caucasian Albania
Caucasian Albania is a modern exonym for a former state located in ancient times in the Caucasus: mostly in what is now Azerbaijan (where both of its capitals were located). The modern endonyms for the area are ''Aghwank'' and ''Aluank'', among ...
into a vassal state after Christian resistance led by King
Javanshir was suppressed in 667. The power vacuum left by the decline of the
Abbasid Caliphate
The Abbasid Caliphate ( or ; ar, الْخِلَافَةُ الْعَبَّاسِيَّة, ') was the third caliphate to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abdul-Muttalib ...
was filled by numerous local dynasties such as the
Sallarids,
Sajids, and
Shaddadids. At the beginning of the 11th century, the territory was gradually seized by the waves of
Oghuz Turks
The Oghuz or Ghuzz Turks (Middle Turkic languages, Middle Turkic: ٱغُز, ''Oγuz'', ota, اوغوز, Oġuz) were a western Turkic people that spoke the Oghuz languages, Oghuz branch of the Turkic languages, Turkic language family. In th ...
from Central Asia, who adopted a
Turkoman ethnonym
An ethnonym () is a name applied to a given ethnic group. Ethnonyms can be divided into two categories: exonyms (whose name of the ethnic group has been created by another group of people) and autonyms, or endonyms (whose name is created and used ...
at the time. The first of these Turkic dynasties established was the
Seljuk Empire
The Great Seljuk Empire, or the Seljuk Empire was a high medieval, culturally Turco-Persian tradition, Turko-Persian, Sunni Islam, Sunni Muslim empire, founded and ruled by the Qiniq (tribe), Qïnïq branch of Oghuz Turks. It spanned a total are ...
, which entered the area now known as Azerbaijan by 1067.
The pre-Turkic population that lived on the territory of modern Azerbaijan spoke several
Indo-European
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch ...
and Caucasian languages, among them
Armenian
Armenian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent
** Armenian Diaspora, Armenian communities across the ...
[Моисей Хоренский. Армянская География VII в. Перевод Патканова К.П. СПб., 1877. стр. 40,17] and an
Iranian language
The Iranian languages or Iranic languages are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family that are spoken natively by the Iranian peoples, predominantly in the Iranian Plateau.
The Iranian languages are grouped ...
,
Old Azeri
Old Azeri (also spelled Adhari, Azeri or Azari) is the extinct Iranian language that was once spoken in the northwestern Iranian historic region of Azerbaijan (Iranian Azerbaijan) before the Turkification of the region. Some linguists believe th ...
, which was gradually replaced by a
Turkic language, the early precursor of the
Azerbaijani language
Azerbaijani () or Azeri (), also referred to as Azeri Turkic or Azeri Turkish, is a Turkic language from the Oghuz sub-branch spoken primarily by the Azerbaijani people, who live mainly in the Republic of Azerbaijan where the North Azerbaija ...
of today. Some linguists have also stated that the
Tati dialects of
Iranian Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan or Azarbaijan ( fa, آذربایجان, ''Āzarbāijān'' ; az-Arab, آذربایجان, ''Āzerbāyjān'' ), also known as Iranian Azerbaijan, is a historical region in northwestern Iran that borders Iraq, Turkey, the Nakhchivan ...
and the Republic of Azerbaijan, like those spoken by the
Tats, are descended from Old Azeri.
Locally, the possessions of the subsequent Seljuk Empire were ruled by
Eldiguzids
The Ildegizids, EldiguzidsC.E. Bosworth, "Ildenizids or Eldiguzids", Encyclopaedia of Islam, Edited by P.J. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs et al., Encyclopædia of Islam, 2nd Edition., 12 vols. with index ...
, technically vassals of the Seljuk sultans, but sometimes ''de facto'' rulers themselves. Under the Seljuks, local poets such as
Nizami Ganjavi and
Khaqani gave rise to a blossoming of
Persian literature
Persian literature ( fa, ادبیات فارسی, Adabiyâte fârsi, ) comprises oral compositions and written texts in the Persian language and is one of the world's oldest literatures. It spans over two-and-a-half millennia. Its sources h ...
on the territory of present-day Azerbaijan.
The local dynasty of the
Shirvanshah
''Shirvanshah'' ( fa, شروانشاه), also spelled as ''Shīrwān Shāh'' or ''Sharwān Shāh'', was the title of the rulers of Shirvan from the mid-9th century to the early 16th century. The title remained in a single family, the Yazidids, a ...
s became a
vassal
A vassal or liege subject is a person regarded as having a mutual obligation to a lord or monarch, in the context of the feudal system in medieval Europe. While the subordinate party is called a vassal, the dominant party is called a suzerain. W ...
state of
Timur's empire and assisted him in his war with the ruler of the
Golden Horde
The Golden Horde, self-designated as Ulug Ulus, 'Great State' in Turkic, was originally a Mongols, Mongol and later Turkicized khanate established in the 13th century and originating as the northwestern sector of the Mongol Empire. With the fr ...
Tokhtamysh. Following Timur's death, two independent and rival states emerged:
Qara Qoyunlu
The Qara Qoyunlu or Kara Koyunlu ( az, Qaraqoyunlular , fa, قره قویونلو), also known as the Black Sheep Turkomans, were a culturally Persianate, Muslim Turkoman "Kara Koyunlu, also spelled Qara Qoyunlu, Turkish Karakoyunlular, Eng ...
and
Aq Qoyunlu
The Aq Qoyunlu ( az, Ağqoyunlular , ) was a culturally Persianate,Kaushik Roy, ''Military Transition in Early Modern Asia, 1400–1750'', (Bloomsbury, 2014), 38; "Post-Mongol Persia and Iraq were ruled by two tribal confederations: Akkoyunlu (Wh ...
. The Shirvanshahs returned, maintaining for numerous centuries to come a high degree of autonomy as local rulers and vassals as they had done since 861. In 1501, the
Safavid dynasty
The Safavid dynasty (; fa, دودمان صفوی, Dudmâne Safavi, ) was one of Iran's most significant ruling dynasties reigning from 1501 to 1736. Their rule is often considered the beginning of modern Iranian history, as well as one of th ...
of Iran subdued the Shirvanshahs and gained its possessions. In the course of the next century, the Safavids
converted the formerly Sunni population to Shia Islam, as they did with the population in what is modern-day Iran. The Safavids allowed the Shirvanshahs to remain in power, under Safavid suzerainty, until 1538, when Safavid king
Tahmasp I
Tahmasp I ( fa, طهماسب, translit=Ṭahmāsb or ; 22 February 1514 – 14 May 1576) was the second shah of Safavid Iran from 1524 to 1576. He was the eldest son of Ismail I and his principal consort, Tajlu Khanum. Ascending the throne after t ...
(r. 1524–1576) completely deposed them, and made the area into the Safavid province of
Shirvan. The Sunni Ottomans briefly managed to occupy parts of present-day Azerbaijan as a result of the
Ottoman–Safavid War of 1578–1590; by the early 17th century, they were ousted by Safavid Iranian ruler
Abbas I (r. 1588–1629). In the wake of the demise of the Safavid Empire,
Baku
Baku (, ; az, Bakı ) is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. Baku is located below sea level, which makes it the lowest lying national capital in the world a ...
and its environs were briefly occupied by the Russians as a consequence of the
Russo-Persian War of 1722–1723. Despite brief intermissions such as these by Safavid Iran's neighboring rivals, the land of what is today Azerbaijan remained under Iranian rule from the earliest advent of the Safavids up to the course of the 19th century.
Contemporary history
![Khanates of the Caucasus in the 18th-19th centuries](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Azerbaijani_khanates_in_the_18th-19th_centuries.png)
After the
Safavid
Safavid Iran or Safavid Persia (), also referred to as the Safavid Empire, '. was one of the greatest Iranian empires after the 7th-century Muslim conquest of Persia, which was ruled from 1501 to 1736 by the Safavid dynasty. It is often conside ...
s, the area was ruled by the Iranian
Afsharid dynasty. After the death of
Nader Shah
Nader Shah Afshar ( fa, نادر شاه افشار; also known as ''Nader Qoli Beyg'' or ''Tahmāsp Qoli Khan'' ) (August 1688 – 19 June 1747) was the founder of the Afsharid dynasty of Iran and one of the most powerful rulers in Iranian h ...
(r. 1736–1747), many of his former subjects capitalized on the eruption of instability. Numerous self-ruling
khanate
A khaganate or khanate was a polity ruled by a khan, khagan, khatun, or khanum. That political territory was typically found on the Eurasian Steppe and could be equivalent in status to tribal chiefdom, principality, kingdom or empire.
Mong ...
s with various forms of autonomy emerged in the area. The rulers of these khanates were directly related to the ruling dynasties of Iran and were
vassals
A vassal or liege subject is a person regarded as having a mutual obligation to a lord or monarch, in the context of the feudal system in medieval Europe. While the subordinate party is called a vassal, the dominant party is called a suzerain. W ...
and
subjects of the Iranian shah. The khanates exercised control over their affairs via international trade routes between Central Asia and the West.
Thereafter, the area was under the successive rule of the Iranian
Zands and
Qajars. From the late 18th century, Imperial Russia switched to a more aggressive
geo-political
Geopolitics (from Greek γῆ ''gê'' "earth, land" and πολιτική ''politikḗ'' "politics") is the study of the effects of Earth's geography (human and physical) on politics and international relations. While geopolitics usually refers to ...
stance towards its two neighbors and rivals to the south, namely Iran and the Ottoman Empire. Russia now actively tried to gain possession of the Caucasus region which was, for the most part, in the hands of Iran.
[
] In 1804, the Russians
invaded and sacked the Iranian town of Ganja, sparking the
Russo-Persian War of 1804–1813. The militarily superior Russians ended the Russo-Persian War of 1804–1813 with a victory.
Following Qajar Iran's loss in the 1804–1813 war, it was forced to concede suzerainty over most of the khanates, along with Georgia and Dagestan to the
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
, per the
Treaty of Gulistan.
[Timothy C. Dowling (2014)]
''Russia at War: From the Mongol Conquest to Afghanistan, Chechnya, and Beyond''
pp. 728–729 ABC-CLIO,
The area to the north of the river
Aras, amongst which territory lies the contemporary Republic of Azerbaijan, was Iranian territory until Russia occupied it in the 19th century.
[
] About a decade later, in violation of the Gulistan treaty, the Russians invaded Iran's
Erivan Khanate
The Erivan Khanate ( fa, خانات ایروان, translit=Xānāt-e Iravān; hy, Երեւանի խանութիւն, translit=Yerevani xanut'iwn; az, ایروان خانلیغی, translit=İrəvan xanlığı), also known as Chokhur-e Sa'd, was ...
. This sparked the final bout of hostilities between the two, the
Russo-Persian War of 1826–1828. The resulting
Treaty of Turkmenchay, forced
Qajar Iran
Qajar Iran (), also referred to as Qajar Persia, the Qajar Empire, '. Sublime State of Persia, officially the Sublime State of Iran ( fa, دولت علیّه ایران ') and also known then as the Guarded Domains of Iran ( fa, ممالک م ...
to cede sovereignty over the Erivan Khanate, the
Nakhchivan Khanate and the remainder of the
Talysh Khanate,
comprising the last parts of the soil of the contemporary Azerbaijani Republic that were still in Iranian hands. After the incorporation of all Caucasian territories from Iran into Russia, the new border between the two was set at the
Aras River, which, upon the Soviet Union's disintegration, subsequently became part of the border between Iran and the Azerbaijan Republic.
Qajar Iran was forced to cede its Caucasian territories to Russia in the 19th century, which thus included the territory of the modern-day Azerbaijan Republic, while as a result of that cession, the
Azerbaijani ethnic group is nowadays parted between two nations: Iran and Azerbaijan.
Despite the Russian conquest, throughout the entire 19th century, preoccupation with
Iranian culture
The culture of Iran () or culture of PersiaYarshater, Ehsa, ''Iranian Studies'', vol. XXII no. 1 (1989) is among the most influential in the world. Iran, also known as Persia, is widely considered to be one of the Cradle of civilization, cradle ...
,
literature
Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...
, and language remained widespread amongst Shia and Sunni intellectuals in the Russian-held cities of
Baku
Baku (, ; az, Bakı ) is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. Baku is located below sea level, which makes it the lowest lying national capital in the world a ...
,
Ganja
Ganja (, ; ) is one of the oldest and most commonly used synonyms for marijuana. Its usage in English dates to before 1689.
Etymology
''Ganja'' is borrowed from Hindi/Urdu ( hi, गांजा, links=no, ur, , links=no, IPA: aːɲd ...
and Tiflis (
Tbilisi
Tbilisi ( ; ka, თბილისი ), in some languages still known by its pre-1936 name Tiflis ( ), is the Capital city, capital and the List of cities and towns in Georgia (country), largest city of Georgia (country), Georgia, lying on the ...
, now Georgia). Within the same century, in post-Iranian Russian-held East Caucasia, an Azerbaijani national identity emerged at the end of the 19th century.
After the collapse of the Russian Empire during
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, the short-lived
Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic
The Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic (TDFR; (), (). 22 April – 28 May 1918) was a short-lived state in the Caucasus that included most of the territory of the present-day Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, as well as pa ...
was declared, constituting the present-day republics of Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Armenia.
It was followed by the
March Days massacres
that took place between 30 March and 2 April 1918 in the city of Baku and adjacent areas of the
Baku Governorate
The Baku Governorate, known before 1859 as the Shemakha Governorate, was a province ('' guberniya'') of the Caucasus Viceroyalty of the Russian Empire, with its center in the booming metropolis and Caspian Sea port of Baku. Area (1897): 34,400 sq ...
of the Russian Empire.
When the republic dissolved in May 1918, the leading
Musavat party declared independence as the
Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (ADR), adopting the name of "Azerbaijan" for the new republic; a name that prior to the proclamation of the ADR was solely used to refer to the adjacent
northwestern region of contemporary Iran.
The ADR was the first modern
parliamentary republic
A parliamentary republic is a republic that operates under a parliamentary system of government where the executive branch (the government) derives its legitimacy from and is accountable to the legislature (the parliament). There are a number ...
in the Muslim world.
Among the important accomplishments of the Parliament was the extension of suffrage to women, making Azerbaijan the first Muslim nation to grant women equal political rights with men.
Another important accomplishment of ADR was the establishment of
Baku State University, which was the first modern-type university founded in the Muslim East.
![1ST AZ REP](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Map_of_the_Azerbaijan_Democratic_Republic_2_%281919%29.gif)
By March 1920, it was obvious that Soviet Russia would attack Baku.
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 19 ...
said that the invasion was justified as
Soviet Russia could not survive without Baku's
oil. Independent Azerbaijan lasted only 23 months until the
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
11th Soviet Red Army
The 11th Army was a field army of the Red Army during the Russian Civil War, which fought on the Caspian-Caucasian Front. It took a prominent part in the sovietization of the three republics of the southern Caucasus in 1920–21, when Azerbaijan, ...
invaded it, establishing the
Azerbaijan SSR
Azerbaijan ( az, Азәрбајҹан, Azərbaycan, italics=no), officially the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic (Azerbaijan SSR; az, Азәрбајҹан Совет Сосиалист Республикасы, Azərbaycan Sovet Sosialist R ...
on 28 April 1920. Although the bulk of the newly formed Azerbaijani army was engaged in putting down an Armenian revolt that had just broken out in
Karabakh, Azerbaijanis did not surrender their brief independence of 1918–20 quickly or easily. As many as 20,000 Azerbaijani soldiers died resisting what was effectively a Russian reconquest. Within the ensuing early Soviet period, the Azerbaijani national identity was finally forged.
On 13 October 1921, the Soviet republics of Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia signed an agreement with Turkey known as the
Treaty of Kars. The previously independent
Republic of Aras
The Republic of Aras ( az, Araz Respublikası; also known as the Republic of Araks or the Araxi Republic) was a short-lived and unrecognized state in the South Caucasus, roughly corresponding with the territory that is now the Nakhchivan Autonomous ...
would also become the
Nakhchivan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic within the Azerbaijan SSR by the treaty of Kars. On the other hand,
Armenia
Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ''Ox ...
was awarded the region of
Zangezur and Turkey agreed to return
Gyumri
Gyumri ( hy, Գյումրի, ) is an urban municipal community and the second-largest city in Armenia, serving as the administrative center of Shirak Province in the northwestern part of the country. By the end of the 19th century, when the city w ...
(then known as Alexandropol).
During
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, Azerbaijan played a crucial role in the strategic energy policy of the Soviet Union, with 80 percent of the Soviet Union's oil on the
Eastern Front being supplied by Baku. By the Decree of the
Supreme Soviet of the USSR in February 1942, the commitment of more than 500 workers and employees of the
oil industry
The petroleum industry, also known as the oil industry or the oil patch, includes the global processes of exploration, extraction, refining, transportation (often by oil tankers and pipelines), and marketing of petroleum products. The larges ...
of Azerbaijan were awarded orders and medals.
Operation Edelweiss carried out by the German
Wehrmacht
The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmacht''" replaced the previous ...
targeted Baku because of its importance as the energy (petroleum) dynamo of the USSR.
A fifth of all Azerbaijanis fought in the Second World War from 1941 to 1945. Approximately 681,000 people with over 100,000 of them women, went to the front, while the total population of Azerbaijan was 3.4 million at the time. Some 250,000 people from Azerbaijan were killed on the front. More than 130 Azerbaijanis were named
Heroes of the Soviet Union. Azerbaijani Major-General
Azi Aslanov
Hazi Aslanov ( az, Həzi Əhəd oğlu Aslanov; russian: Ази Агад оглы Асланов; commonly described as Azi Aslanov and A. A. Aslanov,Aleksander A. Maslov, David M. Glantz, ''Fallen Soviet Generals: Soviet General Officers Killed i ...
was twice awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union.
Independence
![RedArmy Paratroops Baku 1990](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8c/RedArmy_Paratroops_Baku_1990.jpg)
Following the politics of ''
glasnost
''Glasnost'' (; russian: link=no, гласность, ) has several general and specific meanings – a policy of maximum openness in the activities of state institutions and freedom of information, the inadmissibility of hushing up problems, ...
'', initiated by
Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...
, civil unrest and ethnic strife grew in various regions of the Soviet Union, including
Nagorno-Karabakh,
an autonomous region of the Azerbaijan SSR. The disturbances in Azerbaijan, in response to Moscow's indifference to an already heated conflict, resulted in calls for independence and secession, which culminated in the
Black January events in Baku. Later in 1990, the
Supreme Council of the Azerbaijan SSR dropped the words "Soviet Socialist" from the title, adopted the "Declaration of Sovereignty of the Azerbaijan Republic" and restored the flag of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic as the state flag.
As a consequence of the failed
1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt
The 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, also known as the August Coup,, "August Putsch". was a failed attempt by hardliners of the Soviet Union's Communist Party to forcibly seize control of the country from Mikhail Gorbachev, who was Soviet ...
in Moscow, the Supreme Council of Azerbaijan adopted a Declaration of Independence on 18 October 1991, which was affirmed by a nationwide referendum in December 1991, while the Soviet Union officially ceased to exist on 26 December 1991.
The country now celebrates its
Independence Day
An independence day is an annual event commemorating the anniversary of a nation's independence or statehood, usually after ceasing to be a group or part of another nation or state, or more rarely after the end of a military occupation. Man ...
on 18 October.
The early years of independence were overshadowed by the
First Nagorno-Karabakh war
The First Nagorno-Karabakh War, referred to in Armenia as the Artsakh Liberation War ( hy, Արցախյան ազատամարտ, Artsakhyan azatamart) was an ethnic and territorial conflict that took place from February 1988 to May 1994, in th ...
with the ethnic Armenian majority of Nagorno-Karabakh backed by Armenia. By the end of the hostilities in 1994, Armenians controlled up to 14–16 percent of Azerbaijani territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh itself.
[ De Waal, Thomas (2013). ''Black Garden: Armenia And Azerbaijan Through Peace and War''. New York: New York University Press, p. 286. .] During the war many atrocities and pogroms by both sides were committed including the
massacre
A massacre is the killing of a large number of people or animals, especially those who are not involved in any fighting or have no way of defending themselves. A massacre is generally considered to be morally unacceptable, especially when per ...
s at
Malibeyli and Gushchular, the
Garadaghly massacre
The Capture of Garadaghly ( az, Qaradağlının işğalı) was the seizure of Garadaghly, an Azerbaijani-populated village in Khojavend district of Nagorno-Karabakh by Armenian volunteer units on 17 February 1992, in the First Nagorno-Karabakh ...
and the
Khojaly massacres, along with the
Baku pogrom
The Baku pogrom ( hy, Բաքվի ջարդեր, ) was a pogrom directed against the ethnic Armenian inhabitants of Baku, Azerbaijan SSR. From January 12, 1990, a seven-day pogrom broke out against the Armenian civilian population in Baku during ...
, the
Maraga massacre and the
Kirovabad pogrom
The Kirovabad pogrom or the pogrom of Kirovabad was an Azeri-led ethnic cleansing that targeted Armenians living in the city of Kirovabad (today called Ganja) in Soviet Azerbaijan during November 1988.
Pogrom
An unidentified Armenian press ed ...
. Furthermore, an estimated 30,000 people have been killed and more than a million people have been displaced, more than 800,000 Azerbaijanis and 300,000 Armenians. Four
United Nations Security Council
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the Organs of the United Nations, six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international security, international peace and security, recommending the admi ...
Resolutions (
822
__NOTOC__
Year 822 ( DCCCXXII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
By place Byzantine Empire
* Byzantine general and usurper Thomas the Slav continues his revolt ...
,
853
__NOTOC__
Year 853 ( DCCCLIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
By place Byzantine Empire
* May 22 – A Byzantine fleet (85 ships and 5,000 men) sacks and d ...
,
874
__FORCETOC__
Year 874 ( DCCCLXXIV) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
By place
Europe
* Salomon, duke ('king') of Brittany, is murdered by a faction which includ ...
, and
884
__NOTOC__
Year 884 ( DCCCLXXXIV) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
By place Europe
* March 1 – Diego Rodríguez Porcelos, count of Castile, founds and repo ...
) demand for "the immediate withdrawal of all Armenian forces from all occupied territories of Azerbaijan." Many Russians and Armenians left and fled Azerbaijan as refugees during the 1990s. According to the 1970 census, there were 510,000 ethnic
Russians
, native_name_lang = ru
, image =
, caption =
, population =
, popplace =
118 million Russians in the Russian Federation (2002 ''Winkler Prins'' estimate)
, region1 =
, pop1 ...
and 484,000 Armenians in Azerbaijan.
Heydar Aliyev, 1993–today
![Nagorno-Karabakh conflict map (pre-2020)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Nagorno-Karabakh_conflict_map_%28pre-2020%29.png)
In 1993, democratically elected president
Abulfaz Elchibey
Abulfaz Elchibey ( az, Əbülfəz Elçibəy; 24 June 1938, in Nakhchivan – 22 August 2000, in Ankara) was an Azerbaijani political figure and a former Soviet dissident. His real name was Abulfaz Gadirgulu oghlu Aliyev (Azerbaijani: ''Əbülf ...
was overthrown by a military insurrection led by Colonel
Surat Huseynov
Surat Davud oghlu Huseynov ( az, Surət Davud oğlu Hüseynov; born 12 February 1959 in Kirovabad) is an Azerbaijani colonel and ex-Prime Minister of Azerbaijan, who rose to prominence during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War. His military career l ...
, which resulted in the rise to power of the former leader of
Soviet Azerbaijan,
Heydar Aliyev
Heydar Alirza oghlu Aliyev ( az, Һејдәр Әлирза оғлу Әлијев, italic=no, Heydər Əlirza oğlu Əliyev, ; , ; 10 May 1923 – 12 December 2003) was a Soviet and Azerbaijani politician who served as the third president of Aze ...
. In 1994, Surat Huseynov, by that time the prime minister, attempted another military coup against Heydar Aliyev, but he was arrested and charged with treason. A year later, in 1995, another
coup was attempted against Aliyev, this time by the commander of the
OMON special unit,
Rovshan Javadov
Rovshan Bakhtiyar oghlu Javadov ( az, Rövşən Bəxtiyar oğlu Cavadov, 19 October 1951 – March 17, 1995) was an officer in the Azerbaijani Armed Forces and the chief of the Special Purpose Police Detachment of Azerbaijan (OPON). Born in wha ...
. The coup was averted, resulting in the killing of the latter and disbanding of Azerbaijan's OMON units.
At the same time, the country was tainted by rampant corruption in the governing bureaucracy. In October 1998, Aliyev was reelected for a second term. Despite the much improved economy, particularly with the exploitation of the
Azeri–Chirag–Guneshli oil field and
Shah Deniz gas field, Aliyev's presidency was criticized due to suspected election fraud, high levels of economic inequality and
domestic corruption.
Ilham Aliyev
Ilham Heydar oghlu Aliyev ( az, İlham Heydər oğlu Əliyev, ; born 24 December 1961) is the fourth president of Azerbaijan, serving in the post since 31 October 2003.
The son and second child of the former Azerbaijani leader Heydar Aliyev, ...
, Heydar Aliyev's son, became chairman of the
New Azerbaijan Party
The New Azerbaijan Party ( az, Yeni Azərbaycan Partiyası, YAP) is the ruling political party in Azerbaijan, founded on 21 November 1992 under the leadership of Heydar Aliyev. After his election as President of Azerbaijan on 3 October 1993, and ...
as well as
President of Azerbaijan
The president of the Republic of Azerbaijan is the head of state of Azerbaijan. The Constitution states that the president is the embodiment of executive power, commander-in-chief, "representative of Azerbaijan in home and foreign policies", ...
when his father died in 2003. He was
reelected to a third term as president in October 2013. In April 2018, President Ilham Aliyev secured his fourth consecutive term in the
election
An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office.
Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has opera ...
that was boycotted by the main opposition parties as fraudulent. On 27 September 2020, new clashes in the unresolved
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict resumed along the
Nagorno-Karabakh Line of Contact
The Line of Contact ( hy, շփման գիծ, ''shp’man gits'', az, təmas xətti) was the line of military control which separated Armenian forces (the Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Army and the Armenian Armed Forces) and the Azerbaijan Armed Fo ...
. Both the armed forces of Azerbaijan and Armenia reported military and civilian casualties. The
Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire agreement and the end of the six-week
war between Azerbaijan and Armenia was widely celebrated in Azerbaijan, as they made significant territorial gains.
Geography
![Koppen-Geiger Map AZE present](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/40/Koppen-Geiger_Map_AZE_present.svg)
Geographically, Azerbaijan is located in the
South Caucasus
The South Caucasus, also known as Transcaucasia or the Transcaucasus, is a geographical region on the border of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, straddling the southern Caucasus Mountains. The South Caucasus roughly corresponds to modern Arme ...
region of
Eurasia
Eurasia (, ) is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. Primarily in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres, it spans from the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Japanese archipelago a ...
, straddling
Western Asia
Western Asia, West Asia, or Southwest Asia, is the westernmost subregion of the larger geographical region of Asia, as defined by some academics, UN bodies and other institutions. It is almost entirely a part of the Middle East, and includes Ana ...
and Eastern Europe. It lies between latitudes
38° and
42° N, and longitudes
44° and
51° E. The total length of Azerbaijan's land borders is , of which are with Armenia, with Iran, 480 kilometers with Georgia, with Russia and with Turkey.
The coastline stretches for , and the length of the widest area of the Azerbaijani section of the Caspian Sea is .
The country has a
landlocked
A landlocked country is a country that does not have territory connected to an ocean or whose coastlines lie on endorheic basins. There are currently 44 landlocked countries and 4 landlocked de facto states. Kazakhstan is the world's largest ...
exclave
An enclave is a territory (or a small territory apart of a larger one) that is entirely surrounded by the territory of one other state or entity. Enclaves may also exist within territorial waters. ''Enclave'' is sometimes used improperly to deno ...
, the
Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic
The Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic ( az, Naxçıvan Muxtar Respublikası, ), is a landlocked exclave of the Republic of Azerbaijan. The region covers Official portal of Nakhchivan Autonomous RepublicNakhchivan Autonomous Republic with a popula ...
.
![Budug Azerbaijan16](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e3/Budug_Azerbaijan16.jpg)
Three physical features dominate Azerbaijan: the Caspian Sea, whose shoreline forms a natural boundary to the east; the
Greater Caucasus mountain range to the north; and the extensive flatlands at the country's center. There are also three mountain ranges, the Greater and
Lesser Caucasus, and the
Talysh Mountains, together covering approximately 40% of the country.
The highest peak of Azerbaijan is
Mount Bazardüzü
Mount Bazardüzü (, ; lez, Кичӏен сув ; russian: Базардюзю, ) is a mountain peak in the Greater Caucasus range on the border between Dagestan, Russia and Azerbaijan. At above sea level, it is the highest peak in both Dagesta ...
, while the lowest point lies in the Caspian Sea . Nearly half of all the
mud volcano
A mud volcano or mud dome is a landform created by the eruption of mud or slurries, water and gases. Several geological processes may cause the formation of mud volcanoes. Mud volcanoes are not true igneous volcanoes as they do not produce lava ...
es on Earth are concentrated in Azerbaijan,
these volcanoes were also among nominees for the
New7Wonders of Nature
New 7 Wonders of Nature (2007–2011) was an initiative started in 2007 to create a list of seven natural wonders chosen by people through a global poll. It was the second in a series of Internet-based polls led by Swiss-born Canadian Bernard Web ...
.
The main water sources are surface waters. Only 24 of the 8,350 rivers are greater than in length.
All the rivers drain into the Caspian Sea in the east of the country.
The largest lake is
Sarysu , and the longest river is
Kur
The ancient Mesopotamian underworld, most often known in Sumerian as Kur, Irkalla, Kukku, Arali, or Kigal and in Akkadian as Erṣetu, although it had many names in both languages, was a dark, dreary cavern located deep below the ground, where ...
, which is
transboundary with
Armenia
Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ''Ox ...
. Azerbaijan has several islands along the Caspian sea, mostly located in the
Baku Archipelago.
Since the independence of Azerbaijan in 1991, the
Azerbaijani government has taken measures to preserve the environment of Azerbaijan. National protection of the environment accelerated after 2001 when the state budget increased due to new revenues provided by the
Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline. Within four years, protected areas doubled and now make up eight percent of the country's territory. Since 2001 the government has set up seven large reserves and almost doubled the sector of the budget earmarked for environmental protection.
Landscape
![Azerbajiani landscape - Another version](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/Azerbajiani_landscape_-_Another_version.jpg)
Azerbaijan is home to a wide variety of landscapes. Over half of Azerbaijan's landmass consists of
mountain ridge
A ridge or a mountain ridge is a geographical feature consisting of a chain of mountains or hills that form a continuous elevated crest for an extended distance. The sides of the ridge slope away from the narrow top on either side. The line ...
s,
crests,
highland
Highlands or uplands are areas of high elevation such as a mountainous region, elevated mountainous plateau or high hills. Generally speaking, upland (or uplands) refers to ranges of hills, typically from up to while highland (or highlands) is ...
s, and
plateaus which rise up to hypsometric levels of 400–1000 meters (including the Middle and Lower lowlands), in some places (Talis, Jeyranchol-Ajinohur and Langabiz-Alat foreranges) up to 100–120 meters, and others from 0–50 meters and up (
Qobustan, Absheron
Qobustan is a village in the municipality of Pirəkəşkül-Qobustan in the Absheron District of Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republi ...
). The rest of Azerbaijan's terrain consists of plains and lowlands. Hypsometric marks within the Caucasus region vary from about −28 meters at the Caspian Sea shoreline up to 4,466 meters (Bazardüzü peak).
The formation of climate in Azerbaijan is influenced particularly by cold
arctic
The Arctic ( or ) is a polar regions of Earth, polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Canada (Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut), Danish Realm (Greenla ...
air masses of Scandinavian
anticyclone
An anticyclone is a weather phenomenon defined as a large-scale circulation of winds around a central region of high atmospheric pressure, clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and counterclockwise in the Southern Hemisphere as viewed from abov ...
, temperate air masses of
Siberia
Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...
n anticyclone, and Central Asian anticyclone.
Azerbaijan's diverse landscape affects the ways air masses enter the country.
The Greater Caucasus protects the country from direct influences of cold air masses coming from the north. That leads to the formation of
subtropical climate
The subtropical zones or subtropics are geographical and climate zones to the north and south of the tropics. Geographically part of the temperate zones of both hemispheres, they cover the middle latitudes from to approximately 35° north and ...
on most foothills and plains of the country. Meanwhile, plains and foothills are characterized by high
solar radiation
Solar irradiance is the power per unit area (surface power density) received from the Sun in the form of electromagnetic radiation in the wavelength range of the measuring instrument.
Solar irradiance is measured in watts per square metre (W/m ...
rates.
Nine out of eleven existing
climate zones are present in Azerbaijan.
Both the absolute minimum temperature (
) and the absolute maximum temperature were observed in
Julfa and
Ordubad – regions of
Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic
The Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic ( az, Naxçıvan Muxtar Respublikası, ), is a landlocked exclave of the Republic of Azerbaijan. The region covers Official portal of Nakhchivan Autonomous RepublicNakhchivan Autonomous Republic with a popula ...
.
The maximum annual
precipitation
In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls under gravitational pull from clouds. The main forms of precipitation include drizzle, rain, sleet, snow, ice pellets, graupel and hail. ...
falls in
Lankaran
Lankaran ( az, Lənkəran, ) is a city in Azerbaijan, on the coast of the Caspian Sea, near the southern border with Iran. As of 2021, the city had a population of 89,300. It is next to, but independent of, Lankaran District. The city forms a dis ...
() and the minimum in Absheron ().
![Murov mountain in Azerbaijan-Caucasus3](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/24/Murov_mountain_in_Azerbaijan-Caucasus3.jpg)
Rivers and lakes form the principal part of the water systems of Azerbaijan, they were formed over a long geological timeframe and changed significantly throughout that period. This is particularly evidenced by remnants of ancient rivers found throughout the country. The country's water systems are continually changing under the influence of natural forces and human-introduced industrial activities. Artificial rivers (canals) and ponds are a part of Azerbaijan's water systems. In terms of water supply, Azerbaijan is below the average in the world with approximately per year of water per square kilometer.
All big
water reservoirs are built on Kur. The hydrography of Azerbaijan basically belongs to the
Caspian Sea basin Caspian can refer to:
*The Caspian Sea
*The Caspian Depression, surrounding the northern part of the Caspian Sea
*The Caspians, the ancient people living near the Caspian Sea
*Caspian languages, collection of languages and dialects of Caspian peopl ...
.
The
Kura
Rúben de Almeida Barbeiro (born August 21, 1987 in Leiria), better known as KURA, is a Portuguese electro house music DJ and producer. Kura has released tracks through labels such as Hardwell's Revealed Recordings, Flashover Recordings, M ...
and
Aras are the major rivers in Azerbaijan. They run through the
Kura-Aras Lowland. The rivers that directly flow into the Caspian Sea, originate mainly from the north-eastern slope of the Major Caucasus and
Talysh Mountains and run along the Samur–Devechi and Lankaran lowlands.
Yanar Dag
Yanar Dagh ( az, Yanar Dağ, meaning "burning mountain") is a natural gas fire which blazes continuously on a hillside on the Absheron Peninsula on the Caspian Sea near Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan (a country which itself is known as "the Lan ...
, translated as "burning mountain", is a natural gas fire which blazes continuously on a hillside on the
Absheron Peninsula
The Absheron Peninsula ( az, Abşeron yarımadası) is a peninsula in Azerbaijan. It is the location of Baku, the biggest and the most populous city of the country, and also the Baku metropolitan area, with its satellite cities Sumqayit and Khyrd ...
on the
Caspian Sea
The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, often described as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia; east of the Caucasus, west of the broad steppe of Central Asia ...
near
Baku
Baku (, ; az, Bakı ) is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. Baku is located below sea level, which makes it the lowest lying national capital in the world a ...
, which itself is known as the "land of fire." Flames jet out into the air from a thin, porous sandstone layer. It is a tourist attraction to visitors to the Baku area.
Biodiversity
![Stamp of Azerbaijan 750](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fd/Stamps_of_Azerbaijan%2C_2006-750.jpg)
The first reports on the richness and diversity of animal life in Azerbaijan can be found in travel notes of Eastern travelers. Animal carvings on architectural monuments, ancient rocks, and stones survived up to the present times. The first information on flora and fauna of Azerbaijan was collected during the visits of naturalists to Azerbaijan in the 17th century.
There are 106 species of mammals, 97 species of fish, 363 species of birds, 10 species of amphibians, and 52 species of reptiles which have been recorded and classified in Azerbaijan.
The national animal of Azerbaijan is the
Karabakh horse
The Karabakh horse ( az, Qarabağ atı) is a mountain-steppe racing and riding horse breed. It is named after the Karabakh region, from which the breed originates. The breed is noted for its good temperament and speed; in 2004, a Karabakh horse n ...
, a mountain-steppe racing and riding horse endemic to Azerbaijan. The Karabakh horse has a reputation for its good temper, speed, elegance, and intelligence. It is one of the oldest breeds, with ancestry dating to the ancient world, but today the horse is an endangered species.
Azerbaijan's flora consists of more than 4,500 species of
higher plants
Vascular plants (), also called tracheophytes () or collectively Tracheophyta (), form a large group of land plants ( accepted known species) that have lignified tissues (the xylem) for conducting water and minerals throughout the plant. They al ...
. Due to the unique climate in Azerbaijan, the flora is much richer in the number of species than the flora of the other republics of the South Caucasus. 66 percent of the species growing in the whole
Caucasus
The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range, have historically ...
can be found in Azerbaijan. The country lies within four ecoregions:
Caspian Hyrcanian mixed forests
The Hyrcanian forests ( fa, جنگل های هیرکانی) are a zone of lush lowland and montane forests covering about adjoining the shores of the Caspian Sea of Iran and part of that of Azerbaijan. The forest is named after the ancient reg ...
,
Caucasus mixed forests
The Caucasus mixed forests is a temperate broadleaf and mixed forests ecoregion in the Caucasus Mountains, as well as the adjacent Lesser Caucasus range and the eastern end of the Pontic Mountains.
Geography
The ecoregion covers an area of , ext ...
,
Eastern Anatolian montane steppe
The Eastern Anatolian montane steppe is a temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands ecoregion. It is located in the Armenian Highlands, covering parts of eastern Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, southern Georgia, and northwestern Iran.
Geograp ...
, and
Azerbaijan shrub desert and steppe
The Azerbaijan shrub desert and steppe is a deserts and xeric shrublands ecoregion in western Asia. It lies in the lowlands west of the Caspian Sea, and covers portions of Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Iran.
Geography
The ecoregion lies mostly in the ...
.
Azerbaijan had a 2018
Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 6.55/10, ranking it 72nd globally out of 172 countries.
Government and politics
The structural formation of Azerbaijan's political system was completed by the adoption of the new
Constitution
A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of Legal entity, entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed.
When ...
on 12 November 1995. According to Article 23 of the Constitution, the
state symbols of the Azerbaijan Republic are the
flag
A flag is a piece of fabric (most often rectangular or quadrilateral) with a distinctive design and colours. It is used as a symbol, a signalling device, or for decoration. The term ''flag'' is also used to refer to the graphic design empl ...
, the
coat of arms
A coat of arms is a heraldry, heraldic communication design, visual design on an escutcheon (heraldry), escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the latter two being outer garments). The coat of arms on an escutcheon forms the central ele ...
, and the
national anthem
A national anthem is a patriotic musical composition symbolizing and evoking eulogies of the history and traditions of a country or nation. The majority of national anthems are marches or hymns in style. American, Central Asian, and European n ...
. The state power in Azerbaijan is limited only by law for internal issues, but international affairs are also limited by international agreements' provisions.
The Constitution of Azerbaijan states that it is a presidential republic with three branches of power – Executive, Legislative, and Judicial. The legislative power is held by the
unicameral
Unicameralism (from ''uni''- "one" + Latin ''camera'' "chamber") is a type of legislature, which consists of one house or assembly, that legislates and votes as one.
Unicameral legislatures exist when there is no widely perceived need for multic ...
National Assembly
In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repre ...
and the Supreme National Assembly in the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic. The Parliament of Azerbaijan, called Milli Majlis, consists of 125 deputies elected based on
majority vote
A majority, also called a simple majority or absolute majority to distinguish it from related terms, is more than half of the total.Dictionary definitions of ''majority'' aMerriam-Webster
New Azerbaijan Party
The New Azerbaijan Party ( az, Yeni Azərbaycan Partiyası, YAP) is the ruling political party in Azerbaijan, founded on 21 November 1992 under the leadership of Heydar Aliyev. After his election as President of Azerbaijan on 3 October 1993, and ...
, and independents loyal to the ruling government, currently hold almost all of the Parliament's 125 seats. During the
2010 Parliamentary election, the opposition parties,
Musavat and
Azerbaijani Popular Front Party, failed to win a single seat. European observers
found numerous irregularities in the run-up to the election and
on election day.
![Munich Security Conference 2010 - dett aliyew 0014](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/Munich_Security_Conference_2010_-_Ilham_Aliyev.jpg)
The executive power is held by the
President
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
*President (education), a leader of a college or university
*President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Automobiles
* Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...
, who is elected for a seven-year term by direct elections, and the
Prime Minister
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...
. The president is authorized to form the
Cabinet
Cabinet or The Cabinet may refer to:
Furniture
* Cabinetry, a box-shaped piece of furniture with doors and/or drawers
* Display cabinet, a piece of furniture with one or more transparent glass sheets or transparent polycarbonate sheets
* Filing ...
, a collective executive body accountable to both the President and the National Assembly.
The
Cabinet of Azerbaijan consists primarily of the prime minister, his deputies, and ministers. The
8th Government of Azerbaijan
The 8th Government of Azerbaijan is the current formation of the Cabinet of Azerbaijan.
Prime Minister
* Novruz Mammadov (2018 to 2019)
* Ali Asadov (from 2019)
Deputy Prime Ministers
* Yaqub Eyyubov
* Shahin Mustafayev
* Ali Ahmadov
* ...
is the administration in its current formation. The president does not have the right to dissolve the National Assembly but has the right to veto its decisions. To override the presidential veto, the parliament must have a majority of 95 votes. The judicial power is vested in the
Constitutional Court,
Supreme Court
A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...
, and the Economic Court. The president nominates the judges in these courts. The
European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice The European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice (CEPEJ) is a judicial body, composed of experts from all the 47 member States of the Council of Europe and prepares tools to improve the efficiency and functioning of justice in Europe (includin ...
(CEPEJ) report refers to the Azerbaijani justice model on the selection of new judges as best practice, reflecting the particular features and the course of development towards ensuring the independence and quality of the judiciary in a new democracy.
Azerbaijan's system of governance nominally can be called two-tiered. The top or highest tier of the government is the Executive Power headed by President. The President appoints the Cabinet of Ministers and other high-ranking officials. The Local Executive Authority is merely a continuation of Executive Power. The Provision determines the legal status of local state administration in Azerbaijan on Local Executive Authority (''Yerli Icra Hakimiyati''), adopted 16 June 1999. In June 2012, the President approved the new Regulation, which granted additional powers to Local Executive Authorities, strengthening their dominant position in Azerbaijan's local affairs Chapter 9 of the Constitution of the Azerbaijan Republic addresses major issues of local self-government, such as the legal status of municipalities, types of local self-government bodies, their basic powers and relationships to other official entities. The other nominal tier of governance is municipalities (''Bələdiyə''), and members of municipalities are elected by a general vote in Municipal elections every five years. Currently, there are 1,607 municipalities across the country. The Law on Municipal Elections and the Law on the Status of Municipalities were the first to be adopted in the field of local government (2 July 1999). The Law on Municipal Service regulates the activities of municipal employees, their rights, duties, labor conditions, and social benefits and outlines the structure of the executive apparatus and the organization of municipal service. The Law on the Status of Municipalities regulates the role and structure of municipal bodies and outlines state guarantees of legal and financial autonomy. The law pays special attention to the adoption and execution of municipal programs concerning social protection, social and economic development, and the local environment.
The Security Council is the deliberative body under the president, and he organizes it according to the Constitution. It was established on 10 April 1997. The administrative department is not a part of the president's office but manages the financial, technical and pecuniary activities of both the president and his office.
Called a "
dynastic dictatorship", the country has been led by
Heydar Aliyev
Heydar Alirza oghlu Aliyev ( az, Һејдәр Әлирза оғлу Әлијев, italic=no, Heydər Əlirza oğlu Əliyev, ; , ; 10 May 1923 – 12 December 2003) was a Soviet and Azerbaijani politician who served as the third president of Aze ...
(who led Soviet Azerbaijan from 1969 to 1982) and then his son
Ilham Aliyev
Ilham Heydar oghlu Aliyev ( az, İlham Heydər oğlu Əliyev, ; born 24 December 1961) is the fourth president of Azerbaijan, serving in the post since 31 October 2003.
The son and second child of the former Azerbaijani leader Heydar Aliyev, ...
since 1993. Although Azerbaijan has held several elections since regaining its independence and it has many of the formal institutions of democracy, it remains categorised as "not free" by
Freedom House
Freedom House is a non-profit, majority U.S. government funded organization in Washington, D.C., that conducts research and advocacy on democracy, political freedom, and human rights. Freedom House was founded in October 1941, and Wendell Wil ...
,
who ranked it 9/100 on Global Freedom Score in 2022, calling it a "consolidated authoritarian regime". In recent years, large numbers of Azerbaijani journalists, bloggers, lawyers, and human rights activists have been rounded up and jailed for their criticism of President Aliyev and government authorities. A resolution adopted by the European Parliament in September 2015 described Azerbaijan as "having suffered the greatest decline in democratic governance in all of Eurasia over the past ten years," noting as well that its dialogue with the country on human rights has "not made any substantial progress." On 17 March 2016, the President of Azerbaijan signed a decree pardoning more than a dozen of the persons regarded as political prisoners by some NGOs. This decree was welcomed as a positive step by the US State Department. On 16 March 2017 another pardon decree was signed, which led to the release of additional persons regarded as political prisoners.
Azerbaijan has been harshly criticized for bribing foreign officials and diplomats to promote its causes abroad and legitimize its elections at home, a practice termed
caviar diplomacy
Caviar diplomacy is a lobbying strategy of Azerbaijan, consisting of costly invitations to foreign politicians and employees of international organizations to Azerbaijan at the expense of the host country. Caviar diplomacy also includes expensive ...
. However, on 6 March 2017, the
European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center
The European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center (ESISC) is a self-described think tank and lobbying group dealing with issues related to terrorism and security. ESISC notes on its website that its "lobbying operations can defend an industri ...
ESISC) published a report called "The Armenian Connection", in which it attacked human rights NGOs and research organisations criticising human rights violations and corruption in Azerbaijan.
ESISC in that report asserted that the "Caviar Diplomacy" report elaborated by ESI aimed to create a climate of suspicion based on slander to form a network of MPs that would engage in a political war against Azerbaijan and that the network, composed of European PMs, Armenian officials, and some NGOs (Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, "Human Rights House Foundation", "Open Dialog, European Stability Initiative, and Helsinki Committee for Human Rights) was financed by the Soros Foundation. According to Robert Coalson (Radio Free Europe), ESISC is a part of Baku's lobbying efforts to extend the use of front think tanks to shift public opinion. Freedom Files Analytical Centre said that "The report is written in the worst traditions of authoritarian propaganda".
[An Exploration into Azerbaijan's Sophisticated System of Projecting Its International Influence, Buying Western Politicians and Capturing Intergovernmental Organisations](_blank)
// Freedom Files Analytical Centre (Civic Solidarity Platform), March 2017
Foreign relations
![Recep Tayyip Erdoğan meet with Ilham Aliyev](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/Recep_Tayyip_Erdo%C4%9Fan_meet_with_Ilham_Aliyev.jpg)
The short-lived Azerbaijan Democratic Republic succeeded in establishing diplomatic relations with six countries, sending diplomatic representatives to Germany and Finland.
The process of international recognition of Azerbaijan's independence from the collapsing Soviet Union lasted roughly one year. The most recent country to recognize Azerbaijan was Bahrain, on 6 November 1996. Full diplomatic relations, including mutual exchanges of missions, were first established with Turkey, Pakistan, the United States, Iran
and Israel.
Azerbaijan has placed a particular emphasis on its "
special relationship
The Special Relationship is a term that is often used to describe the politics, political, social, diplomacy, diplomatic, culture, cultural, economics, economic, law, legal, Biophysical environment, environmental, religion, religious, military ...
" with Turkey.
Azerbaijan has diplomatic relations with 158 countries so far and holds membership in 38 international organizations.
It holds observer status in the
Non-Aligned Movement
The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) is a forum of 120 countries that are not formally aligned with or against any major power bloc. After the United Nations, it is the largest grouping of states worldwide.
The movement originated in the aftermath o ...
and
World Trade Organization
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an intergovernmental organization that regulates and facilitates international trade. With effective cooperation
in the United Nations System, governments use the organization to establish, revise, and e ...
and is a correspondent at the
International Telecommunication Union
The International Telecommunication Union is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for many matters related to information and communication technologies. It was established on 17 May 1865 as the International Telegraph Unio ...
.
On 9 May 2006 Azerbaijan was elected to membership in the newly established
Human Rights Council by the
United Nations General Assembly
The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA or GA; french: link=no, Assemblée générale, AG) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), serving as the main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ of the UN. Curr ...
. The term of office began on 19 June 2006. Azerbaijan was first elected as a non-permanent member of the
UN Security Council in 2011 with the support of 155 countries.
![Heads of state attended ceremony to release young sturgeons into Caspian Sea 2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/Heads_of_state_attended_ceremony_to_release_young_sturgeons_into_Caspian_Sea_2.jpg)
Foreign policy priorities of Azerbaijan include, first of all, the restoration of its territorial integrity; elimination of the consequences of occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh and seven other regions of Azerbaijan surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh;
integration into European and Euro-Atlantic structure; contribution to international security; cooperation with international organizations; regional cooperation and bilateral relations; strengthening of defense capability; promotion of security by domestic policy means; strengthening of democracy; preservation of ethnic and religious tolerance; scientific, educational, and cultural policy and preservation of moral values; economic and social development; enhancing internal and border security; and migration, energy, and transportation security policy.
Azerbaijan is an active member of international coalitions fighting international terrorism. Azerbaijan was one of the first countries to offer support after the
September 11 attacks
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...
. The country is contributing to peacekeeping efforts in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. Azerbaijan is an active member of
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
's
Partnership for Peace
The Partnership for Peace (PfP; french: Partenariat pour la paix) is a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) program aimed at creating trust between the member states of NATO and other states mostly in Europe, including post-Soviet states; ...
program. It also maintains good relations with the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...
and could potentially one day apply for membership.
On 1 July 2021, the US Congress advanced legislation that will have an impact on the military aid that Washington has sent to Azerbaijan since 2012. This was due to the fact that the packages to
Armenia
Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ''Ox ...
, instead are significantly smaller.
Military
The history of the modern Azerbaijan army dates back to
Azerbaijan Democratic Republic in 1918 when the National Army of the newly formed Azerbaijan Democratic Republic was created on 26 June 1918. When Azerbaijan gained independence after the
dissolution of the Soviet Union
The dissolution of the Soviet Union, also negatively connoted as rus, Разва́л Сове́тского Сою́за, r=Razvál Sovétskogo Soyúza, ''Ruining of the Soviet Union''. was the process of internal disintegration within the Sov ...
, the Armed Forces of the Republic of Azerbaijan were created according to the Law on the Armed Forces of 9 October 1991. The original date of the establishment of the short-lived National Army is celebrated as Army Day (26 June) in today's Azerbaijan.
As of 2021, Azerbaijan had 126,000 active personnel in its armed forces. There are also 17,000 paramilitary troops and 330,00 reserve personnel.
[C. W. Bland]
Azerbaijan: Is War Over Nagornyy Karabakh a Realistic Option? Advanced Research and Assessment Group. Caucasus Series 08/17. – Defense Academy of the United Kingdom, 2008, p. 12
The armed forces have three branches: the
Land Forces, the
Air Forces
An air force – in the broadest sense – is the national military branch that primarily conducts aerial warfare. More specifically, it is the branch of a nation's armed services that is responsible for aerial warfare as distinct from an ar ...
and the
Navy
A navy, naval force, or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval warfare, naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral zone, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operations and ...
. Additionally the armed forces embrace several military sub-groups that can be involved in state defense when needed. These are the
Internal Troops
The Internal Troops, full name Internal Troops of the Ministry for Internal Affairs (MVD) (russian: Внутренние войска Министерства внутренних дел, Vnutrenniye Voiska Ministerstva Vnutrennikh Del; abbreviat ...
of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the
State Border Service
The State Border Service of Azerbaijan Republic ( az, Azərbaycan Respublikası Dövlət Sərhəd Xidməti), also known as Border Guard of Azerbaijan, is a governmental law enforcement agency in charge of protecting the borders of Azerbaijan. The C ...
, which includes the
Coast Guard as well.
The
Azerbaijan National Guard
The Azerbaijani National Guard ( az, Azərbaycan Milli Qvardiyası) is an armed force of the Government of Azerbaijan, and operates as a semi-independent entity as well as the a reserve component of the Azerbaijan Army. The Special State Pr ...
is a further paramilitary force. It operates as a semi-independent entity of the Special State Protection Service, an agency subordinate to the President.
Azerbaijan adheres to the
Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe
The original Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) was negotiated and concluded during the last years of the Cold War and established comprehensive limits on key categories of conventional military equipment in Europe (from the Atlan ...
and has signed all major international arms and weapons treaties. Azerbaijan closely cooperates with
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
in programs such as
Partnership for Peace
The Partnership for Peace (PfP; french: Partenariat pour la paix) is a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) program aimed at creating trust between the member states of NATO and other states mostly in Europe, including post-Soviet states; ...
and
Individual Partnership Action Plan/pfp and ipa. Azerbaijan has deployed 151 of its Peacekeeping Forces in Iraq and another 184 in Afghanistan.
Azerbaijan spent $2.24 billion on its defence budget , which amounted to 5.4% of its total GDP, and some 12.7% of general government expenditure. Azerbaijani
defense industry manufactures small arms, artillery systems, tanks, armors and
noctovision devices, aviation bombs, UAV'S/unmanned aerial vehicle, various military vehicles and military planes and helicopters.
Administrative divisions
![Economic Regions of Azerbaijan (2021; labelled)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/64/Economic_Regions_of_Azerbaijan_%282021%3B_labelled%29.png)
Azerbaijan is administratively divided into 14 economic regions; 66
rayons (, singular ) and 11 cities (, singular ) under the direct authority of the republic. Moreover, Azerbaijan includes the
Autonomous Republic
An autonomous republic is a type of administrative division similar to a province or state. A significant number of autonomous republics can be found within the successor states of the Soviet Union, but the majority are located within Russia. Man ...
() of
Nakhchivan.
The
President of Azerbaijan
The president of the Republic of Azerbaijan is the head of state of Azerbaijan. The Constitution states that the president is the embodiment of executive power, commander-in-chief, "representative of Azerbaijan in home and foreign policies", ...
appoints the governors of these units, while the government of Nakhchivan is elected and approved by the parliament of Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic.
Economy
![GPD per capita development of Azerbaijan](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/GPD_per_capita_development_of_Azerbaijan.jpg)
After gaining independence in 1991, Azerbaijan became a member of the
International Monetary Fund
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a major financial agency of the United Nations, and an international financial institution, headquartered in Washington, D.C., consisting of 190 countries. Its stated mission is "working to foster globa ...
, the
World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Interna ...
, the
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is an international financial institution founded in 1991. As a multilateral developmental investment bank, the EBRD uses investment as a tool to build market economies. Initially focus ...
, the
Islamic Development Bank, and the
Asian Development Bank
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is a regional development bank established on 19 December 1966, which is headquartered in the Ortigas Center located in the city of Mandaluyong, Metro Manila, Philippines. The bank also maintains 31 field office ...
.
[
] The banking system of Azerbaijan consists of the
Central Bank of Azerbaijan,
commercial bank
A commercial bank is a financial institution which accepts deposits from the public and gives loans for the purposes of consumption and investment to make profit.
It can also refer to a bank, or a division of a large bank, which deals with cor ...
s, and non-banking credit organizations. The National (now Central) Bank was created in 1992 based on the Azerbaijan State Savings Bank, an affiliate of the former State Savings Bank of the USSR. The Central Bank serves as Azerbaijan's central bank, empowered to issue the national currency, the
Azerbaijani manat, and to supervise all commercial banks. Two major commercial banks are
UniBank
uniBank (Ghana) Limited, commonly known as uniBank, was an indigenous private bank in Ghana, West Africa. The bank was placed in administration in March 2018 and subsequently consolidated as part of the Ghana Government's handling of its banking ...
and the state-owned
International Bank of Azerbaijan
ABB (from az, Azərbaycan Beynəlxalq Bankı ; formerly known as International Bank of Azerbaijan), the largest bank in Azerbaijan, is an open joint-stock company whose shares are owned by the Azerbaijan state.
History
ABB OJSC was founded on ...
, run by Abbas Ibrahimov.
Pushed up by spending and demand growth, the 2007
Q1 inflation rate reached 16.6%.
[
] Nominal incomes and monthly wages climbed 29% and 25% respectively against this figure, but price increases in the non-oil industry encouraged inflation.
Azerbaijan shows some signs of the so-called "
Dutch disease
In economics, the Dutch disease is the apparent causal relationship between the increase in the economic development of a specific sector (for example natural resources) and a decline in other sectors (like the manufacturing sector or agricultur ...
" because of its fast-growing energy sector, which causes inflation and makes non-energy exports more expensive.
![Azerbaijan Product Exports (2019)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Azerbaijan_Product_Exports_%282019%29.svg)
In the early 2000s, chronically high inflation was brought under control. This led to the launch of a new currency, the new Azerbaijani manat, on 1 January 2006, to cement the economic reforms and erase the vestiges of an unstable economy.
Azerbaijan is also ranked 57th in the
Global Competitiveness Report
The ''Global Competitiveness Report'' (GCR) is a yearly report published by the World Economic Forum. Since 2004, the ''Global Competitiveness Report'' ranks countries based on the Global Competitiveness Index, developed by Xavier Sala-i-Martin an ...
for 2010–2011, above other CIS countries. By 2012 the
GDP of Azerbaijan had increased 20-fold from its 1995 level.
Energy and natural resources
![Oil pump in Baku](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/Oil_pump_in_Baku.jpg)
Two-thirds of Azerbaijan is rich in oil and natural gas.
[
]
The history of the oil industry of Azerbaijan dates back to the ancient period. Arabian historian and traveler
Ahmad Al-Baladhuri discussed the economy of the Absheron peninsula in antiquity, mentioning its oil in particular. There are many
pipelines in Azerbaijan Azerbaijan is one of the birthplaces of the oil industry and its history is linked to the fortunes of petroleum, with pipelines used from the late 19th century. The total length of the main pipeline in Azerbaijan is
The centre of the country ...
. The goal of the
Southern Gas Corridor
The Southern Gas Corridor is an initiative of the European Commission for a natural gas supply route from Caspian and Middle Eastern regions to Europe, proposed in 2008. The goal of the Southern Gas Corridor is to reduce Europe's dependency on Ru ...
, which connects the giant
Shah Deniz gas field in Azerbaijan to Europe,
is to reduce European Union's dependency on Russian gas.
The region of the
Lesser Caucasus accounts for most of the country's gold, silver, iron, copper,
titanium
Titanium is a chemical element with the symbol Ti and atomic number 22. Found in nature only as an oxide, it can be reduced to produce a lustrous transition metal with a silver color, low density, and high strength, resistant to corrosion in ...
,
chromium
Chromium is a chemical element with the symbol Cr and atomic number 24. It is the first element in group 6. It is a steely-grey, lustrous, hard, and brittle transition metal.
Chromium metal is valued for its high corrosion resistance and hardne ...
,
manganese
Manganese is a chemical element with the symbol Mn and atomic number 25. It is a hard, brittle, silvery metal, often found in minerals in combination with iron. Manganese is a transition metal with a multifaceted array of industrial alloy use ...
,
cobalt
Cobalt is a chemical element with the symbol Co and atomic number 27. As with nickel, cobalt is found in the Earth's crust only in a chemically combined form, save for small deposits found in alloys of natural meteoric iron. The free element, pr ...
,
molybdenum
Molybdenum is a chemical element with the symbol Mo and atomic number 42 which is located in period 5 and group 6. The name is from Neo-Latin ''molybdaenum'', which is based on Ancient Greek ', meaning lead, since its ores were confused with lea ...
, complex
ore
Ore is natural rock or sediment that contains one or more valuable minerals, typically containing metals, that can be mined, treated and sold at a profit.Encyclopædia Britannica. "Ore". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 7 April 2 ...
and
antimony
Antimony is a chemical element with the symbol Sb (from la, stibium) and atomic number 51. A lustrous gray metalloid, it is found in nature mainly as the sulfide mineral stibnite (Sb2S3). Antimony compounds have been known since ancient time ...
.
In September 1994, a 30-year contract was signed between the
State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic
State may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State
* ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States
* ''Our S ...
(SOCAR) and 13 oil companies, among them
Amoco
Amoco () is a brand of fuel stations operating in the United States, and owned by BP since 1998. The Amoco Corporation was an American chemical and oil company, founded by Standard Oil Company in 1889 around a refinery in Whiting, Indiana, a ...
,
BP,
ExxonMobil
ExxonMobil Corporation (commonly shortened to Exxon) is an American multinational oil and gas corporation headquartered in Irving, Texas. It is the largest direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, and was formed on November 30, ...
,
Lukoil
The PJSC Lukoil Oil Company ( stylized as LUKOIL or ЛУКОЙЛ in Cyrillic script) is a Russian multinational energy corporation headquartered in Moscow, specializing in the business of extraction, production, transport, and sale of petrol ...
and
Equinor.
As Western oil companies are able to tap deepwater
oilfields
A petroleum reservoir or oil and gas reservoir is a subsurface accumulation of hydrocarbons contained in porous or fractured rock formations.
Such reservoirs form when kerogen (ancient plant matter) is created in surrounding rock by the presence ...
untouched by the Soviet exploitation, Azerbaijan is considered one of the most important spots in the world for
oil exploration and development. Meanwhile, the
State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan was established as an extra-budgetary fund to ensure
macroeconomic
Macroeconomics (from the Greek prefix ''makro-'' meaning "large" + ''economics'') is a branch of economics dealing with performance, structure, behavior, and decision-making of an economy as a whole.
For example, using interest rates, taxes, and ...
stability, transparency in the management of oil revenue, and safeguarding of resources for future generations.
![Baku pipelines](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a1/Baku_pipelines.svg)
Access to
biocapacity
The biocapacity or biological capacity of an ecosystem is an estimate of its production of certain biological materials such as natural resources, and its absorption and filtering of other materials such as carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide (chem ...
in Azerbaijan is less than world average. In 2016, Azerbaijan had 0.8 global hectares
of biocapacity per person within its territory, half the world average of 1.6 global hectares per person. In 2016 Azerbaijan used 2.1 global hectares of biocapacity per person – their
ecological footprint
The ecological footprint is a method promoted by the Global Footprint Network to measure human demand on natural capital, i.e. the quantity of nature it takes to support people or an economy. It tracks this demand through an ecological accounti ...
of consumption. This means they use more biocapacity than Azerbaijan contains. As a result, Azerbaijan is running a biocapacity deficit.
[
Azeriqaz, a sub-company of SOCAR, intends to ensure full gasification of the country by 2021.
Azerbaijan is one of the sponsors of the east–west and north–south energy transport corridors. ]Baku–Tbilisi–Kars railway
The Baku–Tbilisi–Kars (BTK), or Baku–Tbilisi–Akhalkalaki–Kars railway (BTAK), is an international rail link project connecting Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, which became operational on 30 October 2017 following several years of delay ...
line will connect the Caspian region with Turkey, which is expected to be completed in July 2017. The Trans-Anatolian gas pipeline
The Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP; az, Trans-Anadolu Təbii Qaz Boru Kəməri, tr, Trans-Anadolu Doğalgaz Boru Hattı) is a natural gas pipeline in Turkey. It is the central part of the Southern Gas Corridor, which connects the ...
(TANAP) and Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) will deliver natural gas from Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz gas to Turkey and Europe.
Azerbaijan extended the agreement on development of ACG until 2050 according to the amended PSA
PSA, PsA, Psa, or psa may refer to:
Biology and medicine
* Posterior spinal artery
* Primary systemic amyloidosis, a disease caused by the accumulation of abnormal proteins
* Prostate-specific antigen, an enzyme used as a blood tracer for pros ...
signed on 14 September 2017 by SOCAR
The State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic ( az, Azərbaycan Respublikası Dövlət Neft Şirkəti), largely known as SOCAR is fully state-owned national oil and gas company headquartered in Baku, Azerbaijan. The company produces oil and na ...
and co-ventures ( BP, Chevron
Chevron (often relating to V-shaped patterns) may refer to:
Science and technology
* Chevron (aerospace), sawtooth patterns on some jet engines
* Chevron (anatomy), a bone
* ''Eulithis testata'', a moth
* Chevron (geology), a fold in rock lay ...
, Inpex
INPEX (Invention and New Product Exposition) is America's largest invention trade show, held since 1985 and organized by the invention promotion firm InventHelp. The annual show is held each June in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
INPEX provides a fo ...
, Equinor, ExxonMobil
ExxonMobil Corporation (commonly shortened to Exxon) is an American multinational oil and gas corporation headquartered in Irving, Texas. It is the largest direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, and was formed on November 30, ...
, TP, ITOCHU and ONGC Videsh
The Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) is a central public sector undertaking under the ownership of Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Government of India. It is headquartered in New Delhi. ONGC was founded on 14 August 1956 by the ...
).
Agriculture
Azerbaijan has the largest agricultural basin in the region. About 54.9 percent of Azerbaijan is agricultural land. At the beginning of 2007 there were 4,755,100 hectares of utilized agricultural area.[
] In the same year the total wood resources counted 136 million m3. Azerbaijan's agricultural scientific research institutes are focused on meadows and pastures, horticulture and subtropical
The subtropical zones or subtropics are geographical zone, geographical and Köppen climate classification, climate zones to the Northern Hemisphere, north and Southern Hemisphere, south of the tropics. Geographically part of the Geographical z ...
crops, green vegetables, viticulture
Viticulture (from the Latin word for ''vine'') or winegrowing (wine growing) is the cultivation and harvesting of grapes. It is a branch of the science of horticulture. While the native territory of ''Vitis vinifera'', the common grape vine, ran ...
and wine-making, cotton growing and medicinal plants
Medicinal plants, also called medicinal herbs, have been discovered and used in traditional medicine practices since prehistoric times. Plants synthesize hundreds of chemical compounds for various functions, including defense and protection ag ...
. In some areas it is profitable to grow grain, potatoes, sugar beet
A sugar beet is a plant whose root contains a high concentration of sucrose and which is grown commercially for sugar production. In plant breeding, it is known as the Altissima cultivar group of the common beet (''Beta vulgaris''). Together wi ...
s, cotton and tobacco. Livestock, dairy products, and wine and spirits are also important farm products. The Caspian fishing industry
The fishing industry includes any industry or activity concerned with taking, culturing, processing, preserving, storing, transporting, marketing or selling fish or fish products. It is defined by the Food and Agriculture Organization as including ...
concentrates on the dwindling stocks of sturgeon
Sturgeon is the common name for the 27 species of fish belonging to the family Acipenseridae. The earliest sturgeon fossils date to the Late Cretaceous
The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretace ...
and beluga. In 2002 the Azerbaijani merchant marine had 54 ships.
Some products previously imported from abroad have begun to be produced locally. Among them are Coca-Cola by Coca-Cola Bottlers LTD., beer by Baki-Kastel, parquet by Nehir and oil pipes by EUPEC Pipe Coating Azerbaijan.
Tourism
Tourism is an important part of the economy of Azerbaijan. The country was a well-known tourist spot in the 1980s. The fall of the Soviet Union, and the First Nagorno-Karabakh War
The First Nagorno-Karabakh War, referred to in Armenia as the Artsakh Liberation War ( hy, Արցախյան ազատամարտ, Artsakhyan azatamart) was an ethnic and territorial conflict that took place from February 1988 to May 1994, in th ...
during the 1990s, damaged the tourist industry and the image of Azerbaijan as a tourist destination.
It was not until the 2000s that the tourism industry began to recover, and the country has since experienced a high rate of growth in the number of tourist visits and overnight stays. In the recent years, Azerbaijan has also become a popular destination for religious, spa, and health care tourism. During winter, the Shahdag Mountain Resort
Shahdagh Mountain Resort is Azerbaijan's first and largest winter resort.
Resort
The Shahdag Mountain Resort Complex (Şahdağ Turizm Merkezi) opened to the public in 2012. It is located in the Azerbaijan's Greater Caucasus range, the site is lo ...
offers skiing with state of the art facilities.
The government of Azerbaijan
The Politics of Azerbaijan takes place in a framework of a semi-presidential republic, with the President of Azerbaijan as the head of state, and the Prime Minister of Azerbaijan as head of government. Executive power is exercised by the preside ...
has set the development of Azerbaijan as an elite tourist destination as a top priority. It is a national strategy to make tourism a major, if not the single largest, contributor to the Azerbaijani economy. These activities are regulated by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Azerbaijan.
There are 63 countries which have a visa-free score.
E-visa – for a visit of foreigners of visa-required countries to the Republic of Azerbaijan.
According to the Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report 2015 of the World Economic Forum, Azerbaijan holds 84th place.
According to a report by the World Travel and Tourism Council, Azerbaijan was among the top ten countries showing the strongest growth in visitor exports between 2010 and 2016, In addition, Azerbaijan placed first (46.1%) among countries with the fastest-developing travel and tourism economies, with strong indicators for inbound international visitor spending last year.
Transportation
The convenient location of Azerbaijan on the crossroad of major international traffic arteries, such as the Silk Road
The Silk Road () was a network of Eurasian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century. Spanning over 6,400 kilometers (4,000 miles), it played a central role in facilitating economic, cultural, political, and reli ...
and the south–north corridor, highlights the strategic importance of the transportation sector for the country's economy. The transport sector in the country includes roads, railways, aviation, and maritime transport.
Azerbaijan is also an important economic hub in the transportation of raw materials. The Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline (BTC) became operational in May 2006 and extends more than through the territories of Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey. The BTC is designed to transport up to 50 million tons of crude oil annually and carries oil from the Caspian Sea oilfields to global markets. The South Caucasus Pipeline, also stretching through the territory of Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey, became operational at the end of 2006 and offers additional gas supplies to the European market from the Shah Deniz gas field. Shah Deniz is expected to produce up to 296 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year. Azerbaijan also plays a major role in the EU-sponsored Silk Road Project.
In 2002, the Azerbaijani government established the Ministry of Transport with a broad range of policy and regulatory functions. In the same year, the country became a member of the Vienna Convention on Road Traffic. Priorities are upgrading the transport network and improving transportation services to better facilitate the development of other sectors of the economy.
The 2012 construction of Kars–Tbilisi–Baku railway was meant to improve transportation between Asia and Europe by connecting the railways of China and Kazakhstan in the east to the European railway system in the west via Turkey. In 2010 Broad-gauge
A broad-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge (the distance between the rails) broader than the used by standard-gauge railways.
Broad gauge of , commonly known as Russian gauge, is the dominant track gauge in former Soviet Union (CIS ...
railways and electrified railways stretched for and respectively. By 2010, there were 35 airports and one heliport.
Science and technology
In the 21st century, a new oil and gas boom helped improve the situation in Azerbaijan's science and technology sectors. The government launched a campaign aimed at modernization and innovation
Innovation is the practical implementation of ideas that result in the introduction of new goods or services or improvement in offering goods or services. ISO TC 279 in the standard ISO 56000:2020 defines innovation as "a new or changed entity ...
. The government estimates that profits from the information technology and communication industry will grow and become comparable to those from oil production.
Azerbaijan has a large and steadily growing Internet sector, mostly uninfluenced by the financial crisis of 2007–2008
Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of fi ...
; rapid growth is forecast for at least five more years. Azerbaijan was ranked 80th in the Global Innovation Index
The Global Innovation Index is an annual ranking of countries by their capacity for, and success in, innovation, published by the World Intellectual Property Organization. It was started in 2007 by INSEAD and ''World Business'', a British maga ...
in 2021, up from 84th in 2019.
The country has also been making progress in developing its telecoms sector. The Ministry of Communications & Information Technologies (MCIT) and an operator through its role in Aztelekom are both policy-makers and regulators. Public payphones are available for local calls and require the purchase of a token from the telephone exchange or some shops and kiosks. Tokens allow a call of indefinite duration. , there were 1,397,000 main telephone lines and 1,485,000 internet users. There are four GSM providers: Azercell
Azercell is an Azerbaijani telecommunications company based in Baku. It is the largest Mobile network operator, mobile network operator in Azerbaijan.
Company background
Azercell Telecom LLC was established on 19 January 1996.
Azercell Tele ...
, , Azerfon (Nar Mobile
Nar is a brand for commercial activities of Azerfon, a mobile telecommunications company, located in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Company background
Azerfon LLC launched its commercial activities on 21 March 2007 under brand name Nar Mobile.
Today the n ...
), Nakhtel Nakhtel ( az, Naxtel) is wireless CDMA operator of Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transco ...
mobile network operators and one CDMA.
In the 21st century a number of prominent Azerbaijani geodynamics and geotectonics
Tectonics (; ) are the processes that control the structure and properties of the Earth's crust and its evolution through time. These include the processes of mountain building, the growth and behavior of the strong, old cores of continents k ...
scientists, inspired by the fundamental works of Elchin Khalilov and others, designed hundreds of earthquake prediction stations and earthquake-resistant buildings that now constitute the bulk of The Republican Center of Seismic Service.
The Azerbaijan National Aerospace Agency
Azerbaijan National Aerospace Agency (MAKA; az, Azərbaycan Milli Aerokosmik Agentliyi) is a governmental body that coordinates all Azerbaijani space research programs with scientific and commercial goals. National Aerospace Agency has been opera ...
launched its first satellite AzerSat 1
Azerspace-1/Africasat-1a', is Azerbaijan's first satellite in space. Built by Orbital Sciences Corporation, it was launched by Ariane 5 into orbit on February 7, 2013 from Kourou in French Guiana at orbital positions 46° east. The satellite cover ...
into orbit on 7 February 2013 from Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana at orbital positions 46° East. The satellite covers Europe and a significant part of Asia and Africa and serves the transmission of TV and radio broadcasting as well as the Internet. The launching of a satellite into orbit is Azerbaijan's first step in realizing its goal of becoming a nation with its own space industry, capable of successfully implementing more projects in the future.
Demographics
As of March 2022, 52.9% of Azerbaijan's total population of 10,164,464 is urban, with the remaining 47.1% being rural. In January 2019, the 50.1% of the total population was female. The sex ratio
The sex ratio (or gender ratio) is usually defined as the ratio of males to females in a population. As explained by Fisher's principle, for evolutionary reasons this is typically about 1:1 in species which reproduce sexually. Many species devia ...
in the same year was 0.99 males per female.
The 2011 population growth-rate was 0.85%, compared to 1.09% worldwide. A significant factor restricting population growth is a high level of migration. In 2011 Azerbaijan saw a migration of −1.14/1,000 people.
The Azerbaijani diaspora is found in 42 countries and in turn there are many centers for ethnic minorities inside Azerbaijan, including the German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
cultural society "Karelhaus", Slavic cultural center, Azerbaijani-Israeli community, Kurdish
Kurdish may refer to:
*Kurds or Kurdish people
*Kurdish languages
*Kurdish alphabets
*Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes:
**Southern Kurdistan
**Eastern Kurdistan
**Northern Kurdistan
**Western Kurdistan
See also
* Kurd (dis ...
cultural center, International Talysh Talysh may refer to:
*Talysh people
*History of Talysh
*Talysh language
*Talysh Khanate, in existence from 1747 to 1828
*Talysh-Mughan Autonomous Republic, a self-declared autonomy, which existed briefly in the south of Azerbaijan in 1993
*Talysh M ...
Association, Lezgin national center "Samur", Azerbaijani-Tatar
The Tatars ()[Tatar]
in the Collins English Dictionary is an umbrella term for different community, Crimean Tatars society, etc.
In total, Azerbaijan has 78 cities, 63 city districts, and one special legal status city. 261 urban-type settlements and 4248 villages follow these.[Azərbaycanın əhalisi , Azərbaycan Respublikasının Dövlət Statistika Komitəsi](_blank)
Stat.gov.az. Retrieved 1 July 2017.
Ethnicity
The ethnic composition of the population according to the 2009 population census: 91.6% Azerbaijanis
Azerbaijanis (; az, Azərbaycanlılar, ), Azeris ( az, Azərilər, ), or Azerbaijani Turks ( az, Azərbaycan Türkləri, ) are a Turkic people living mainly in northwestern Iran and the Republic of Azerbaijan. They are the second-most numer ...
, 2.0% Lezgins, 1.4% Armenians
Armenians ( hy, հայեր, ''hayer'' ) are an ethnic group native to the Armenian highlands of Western Asia. Armenians constitute the main population of Armenia and the ''de facto'' independent Artsakh. There is a wide-ranging diaspora ...
(almost all Armenians live in the break-away region of Nagorno-Karabakh), 1.3% Russians
, native_name_lang = ru
, image =
, caption =
, population =
, popplace =
118 million Russians in the Russian Federation (2002 ''Winkler Prins'' estimate)
, region1 =
, pop1 ...
, 1.3% Talysh Talysh may refer to:
*Talysh people
*History of Talysh
*Talysh language
*Talysh Khanate, in existence from 1747 to 1828
*Talysh-Mughan Autonomous Republic, a self-declared autonomy, which existed briefly in the south of Azerbaijan in 1993
*Talysh M ...
, 0.6% Avars, 0.4% Turks, 0.3% Tatars
The Tatars ()[Tatar]
in the Collins English Dictionary is an umbrella term for different , 0.3% Tats, 0.2% Ukrainians
Ukrainians ( uk, Українці, Ukraintsi, ) are an East Slavs, East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine. They are the seventh-largest nation in Europe. The native language of the Ukrainians is Ukrainian language, Ukrainian. The majority ...
, 0.1% Tsakhurs
The Tsakhur or Caxur ( lez, ЦIахурар, az, Saxurlar, russian: Цахуры) people are a Lezgin sub-ethnic group of northern Azerbaijan and southern Dagestan (Russia). The group numbers around 30,000 people and are called ''yiqy'' (pl. ''yiq ...
, 0.1% Georgians
The Georgians, or Kartvelians (; ka, ქართველები, tr, ), are a nation and indigenous Caucasian ethnic group native to Georgia and the South Caucasus. Georgian diaspora communities are also present throughout Russia, Turkey, G ...
, 0.1% Jews, 0.1% Kurds ug:كۇردلار
Kurds ( ku, کورد ,Kurd, italic=yes, rtl=yes) or Kurdish people are an Iranian ethnic group native to the mountainous region of Kurdistan in Western Asia, which spans southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Ir ...
, other 0.2%.
Languages
The official language is Azerbaijani, which is a Turkic language. Azerbaijani is spoken by approximately 92% of the population as a mother tongue
A first language, native tongue, native language, mother tongue or L1 is the first language or dialect that a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother tongu ...
.[Population by language, sex and urban/rural residence]
UN Data. Retrieved 27 August 2016. Russian and Armenian
Armenian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent
** Armenian Diaspora, Armenian communities across the ...
(only in Nagorno-Karabakh) are also spoken, and each are the mother tongue of around 1.5% of the population respectively.[ There are a dozen other minority languages spoken natively in the country. Avar, Budukh,] Georgian
Georgian may refer to:
Common meanings
* Anything related to, or originating from Georgia (country)
** Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group
** Georgian language, a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians
**Georgian scripts, three scrip ...
, Juhuri, Khinalug, Kryts Kryts may refer to:
* Kryts people, of the Caucasus of Azerbaijan
* Kryts language
Kryts (Kryc) is a Samur language of the Northeast Caucasian language family spoken in parts of the Quba Rayon of Azerbaijan by 6,000 people in 1975. Its dialects ...
, Lezgin, Rutul, Talysh Talysh may refer to:
*Talysh people
*History of Talysh
*Talysh language
*Talysh Khanate, in existence from 1747 to 1828
*Talysh-Mughan Autonomous Republic, a self-declared autonomy, which existed briefly in the south of Azerbaijan in 1993
*Talysh M ...
, Tat, Tsakhur, and Udi Udi may refer to:
Places
* Udi, Enugu, a local government areas and city in Nigeria
* Udi, a place in the Etawah district of Uttar Pradesh, India
People
* Udi Gal (born 1979), Israeli Olympic sailor
* Udi Vaks (born 1979), Israeli Olympic judoka
...
are all spoken by small minorities. Some of these language communities are very small and their numbers are decreasing. Armenian was the majority language in Nagorno-Karabakh with around 76% in 1989. After the first Nagorno-Karabakh war, the population is almost exclusively Armenian at around 95%.
Religion
Azerbaijan is considered the most secular Muslim-majority country. Around 97% of the population are Muslims. 85% of the Muslims are Shia
Shīʿa Islam or Shīʿīsm is the second-largest Islamic schools and branches, branch of Islam. It holds that the Prophets and messengers in Islam, Islamic prophet Muhammad in Islam, Muhammad designated Ali, ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib as his S ...
and 15% Sunni
Sunni Islam () is the largest branch of Islam, followed by 85–90% of the world's Muslims. Its name comes from the word '' Sunnah'', referring to the tradition of Muhammad. The differences between Sunni and Shia Muslims arose from a disagr ...
;[Administrative Department of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan – Presidential Library – Religion](_blank)
(PDF). Retrieved 1 July 2017. the Republic of Azerbaijan has the second-highest proportion of Shia Muslims of any country in the world. Other faiths are practised by the country's various ethnic groups. Under article 48 of its Constitution
A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of Legal entity, entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed.
When ...
, Azerbaijan is a secular state
A secular state is an idea pertaining to secularity, whereby a State (polity), state is or purports to be officially neutral in matters of religion, supporting neither religion nor irreligion. A secular state claims to treat all its citizens ...
and ensures religious freedom. In a 2006–2008 Gallup
Gallup may refer to:
*Gallup, Inc., a firm founded by George Gallup, well known for its opinion poll
*Gallup (surname), a surname
*Gallup, New Mexico, a city in New Mexico, United States
**Gallup station, an Amtrak train in downtown Gallup, New Me ...
poll, only 21% of respondents from Azerbaijan stated that religion is an important part of their daily lives.
Of the nation's religious minorities, the estimated 280,000 Christians (3.1%) are mostly Russian and Georgian
Georgian may refer to:
Common meanings
* Anything related to, or originating from Georgia (country)
** Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group
** Georgian language, a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians
**Georgian scripts, three scrip ...
Orthodox
Orthodox, Orthodoxy, or Orthodoxism may refer to:
Religion
* Orthodoxy, adherence to accepted norms, more specifically adherence to creeds, especially within Christianity and Judaism, but also less commonly in non-Abrahamic religions like Neo-pag ...
and Armenian Apostolic
, native_name_lang = hy
, icon = Armenian Apostolic Church logo.svg
, icon_width = 100px
, icon_alt =
, image = Էջմիածնի_Մայր_Տաճար.jpg
, imagewidth = 250px
, a ...
(almost all Armenians live in the break-away region of Nagorno-Karabakh). In 2003, there were 250 Roman Catholics
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
. Other Christian denominations as of 2002 include Lutherans, Baptists
Baptists form a major branch of Protestantism distinguished by baptizing professing Christian believers only ( believer's baptism), and doing so by complete immersion. Baptist churches also generally subscribe to the doctrines of soul compe ...
and Molokan
The Molokans ( rus, молокан, p=məlɐˈkan or , "dairy-eater") are a Spiritual Christian sect that evolved from Eastern Orthodoxy in the East Slavic lands. Their traditions—especially dairy consumption during Christian fasts—did not ...
s. There is also a small Protestant
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
community. Azerbaijan also has an ancient Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
population with a 2,000-year history; Jewish organizations estimate that 12,000 Jews remain in Azerbaijan, which is home to the only Jewish-majority town outside of Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
and the United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
. Azerbaijan also is home to members of the Baháʼí, Hare Krishna and Jehovah's Witnesses
Jehovah's Witnesses is a millenarian restorationist Christian denomination with nontrinitarian beliefs distinct from mainstream Christianity. The group reports a worldwide membership of approximately 8.7 million adherents involved in ...
communities, as well as adherents of the other religious communities. Some religious communities have been unofficially restricted from religious freedom. A U.S. State Department
The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other nati ...
report on the matter mentions detention of members of certain Muslim and Christian groups, and many groups have difficulty registering with the agency who regulates religion, (SCWRA).
Education
A relatively high percentage of Azerbaijanis have obtained some form of higher education, most notably in scientific and technical subjects. In the Soviet era, literacy and average education levels rose dramatically from their very low starting point, despite two changes in the standard alphabet, from Perso-Arabic script
The Persian alphabet ( fa, الفبای فارسی, Alefbâye Fârsi) is a writing system that is a version of the Arabic script used for the Persian language spoken in Iran ( Western Persian) and Afghanistan (Dari Persian) since the 7th cent ...
to Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
in the 1920s and from Roman to Cyrillic
, bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця
, fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs
, fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic
, fam3 = Phoenician
, fam4 = G ...
in the 1930s. According to Soviet data, 100 percent of males and females (ages nine to forty-nine) were literate in 1970. According to the United Nations Development Program
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)french: Programme des Nations unies pour le développement, PNUD is a United Nations agency tasked with helping countries eliminate poverty and achieve sustainable economic growth and human dev ...
Report 2009, the literacy rate in Azerbaijan is 99.5 percent.
Since independence, one of the first laws that Azerbaijan's Parliament passed to disassociate itself from the Soviet Union was to adopt a modified-Latin alphabet to replace Cyrillic. Other than that the Azerbaijani system has undergone little structural change. Initial alterations have included the reestablishment of religious education (banned during the Soviet period) and curriculum changes that have reemphasized the use of the Azerbaijani language and have eliminated ideological content. In addition to elementary schools, the education institutions include thousands of preschools, general secondary schools, and vocational schools, including specialized secondary schools and technical schools. Education through the ninth grade is compulsory.
Culture
The culture of Azerbaijan has developed as a result of many influences; that's why Azerbaijanis are, in many ways, bi-cultural. Today, national traditions are well preserved in the country despite Western influences, including globalized consumer culture. Some of the main elements of the Azerbaijani culture are: music, literature, folk dances and art, cuisine, architecture, cinematography and Novruz Bayram. The latter is derived from the traditional celebration of the New Year in the ancient Iranian religion of Zoroastrianism
Zoroastrianism is an Iranian religions, Iranian religion and one of the world's History of religion, oldest organized faiths, based on the teachings of the Iranian peoples, Iranian-speaking prophet Zoroaster. It has a Dualism in cosmology, du ...
. Novruz is a family holiday.
The profile of Azerbaijan's population consists, as stated above, of Azerbaijanis, as well as other nationalities or ethnic groups, compactly living in various areas of the country. Azerbaijani national and traditional dresses are the Chokha
A chokha or ; ab, акәымжәы, akʷymzhʷy; ady, цые, tsiya; kbd, цей, tsei; fa, چوقا, chughā; hy, չուխայ, choukha(y); az, çuxa; krc, чепкен, çepken; kum, чепген, çepgen; nog, шепкен, şepken ...
and Papakhi
Papakha (; , ; ; ce, холхазан-куй, holhazan-kuy; , ; ) is a wool hat worn by men throughout the Caucasus and also in uniformed regiments in the region and beyond. The word ''papakha'' is of Turkic origin (''papakh)''.
Styles
Ther ...
. There are radio broadcasts in Russian, Georgian
Georgian may refer to:
Common meanings
* Anything related to, or originating from Georgia (country)
** Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group
** Georgian language, a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians
**Georgian scripts, three scrip ...
, Kurdish
Kurdish may refer to:
*Kurds or Kurdish people
*Kurdish languages
*Kurdish alphabets
*Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes:
**Southern Kurdistan
**Eastern Kurdistan
**Northern Kurdistan
**Western Kurdistan
See also
* Kurd (dis ...
, Lezgian and Talysh Talysh may refer to:
*Talysh people
*History of Talysh
*Talysh language
*Talysh Khanate, in existence from 1747 to 1828
*Talysh-Mughan Autonomous Republic, a self-declared autonomy, which existed briefly in the south of Azerbaijan in 1993
*Talysh M ...
languages, which are financed from the state budget. Some local radio stations in Balakan and Khachmaz organize broadcasts in Avar and Tat. In Baku several newspapers are published in Russian, Kurdish (''Dengi Kurd''), Lezgian (''Samur'') and Talysh languages. Jewish society "Sokhnut" publishes the newspaper ''Aziz''.
Music and folk dances
Music of Azerbaijan builds on folk traditions
In religious studies and folkloristics, folk religion, popular religion, traditional religion or vernacular religion comprises various forms and expressions of religion that are distinct from the official doctrines and practices of organized re ...
that reach back nearly a thousand years. For centuries Azerbaijani music has evolved under the badge of monody
In music, monody refers to a solo vocal style distinguished by having a single melodic line and instrumental accompaniment. Although such music is found in various cultures throughout history, the term is specifically applied to Italian song of ...
, producing rhythmically diverse melodies.[Энциклопедический музыкальный словарь, 2-е изд., Москва, 1966 (''Encyclopedical Music Dictionary'' (1966), 2nd ed., Moscow)] Azerbaijani music has a branchy mode
Mode ( la, modus meaning "manner, tune, measure, due measure, rhythm, melody") may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* '' MO''D''E (magazine)'', a defunct U.S. women's fashion magazine
* ''Mode'' magazine, a fictional fashion magazine which is ...
system, where chromatization of major and minor scales
Scale or scales may refer to:
Mathematics
* Scale (descriptive set theory), an object defined on a set of points
* Scale (ratio), the ratio of a linear dimension of a model to the corresponding dimension of the original
* Scale factor, a number w ...
is of great importance. Among national musical instruments there are 14 string instrument
String instruments, stringed instruments, or chordophones are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer plays or sounds the strings in some manner.
Musicians play some string instruments by plucking the ...
s, eight percussion instruments and six wind instruments. According to ''The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language ''Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', it is one of the largest reference works on the history and theor ...
'', "in terms of ethnicity, culture and religion the Azerbaijani are musically much closer to Iran than Turkey."
Mugham, meykhana
Meykhana ( az, Meyxana) is a distinctive Azerbaijani literary and folk rap tradition, consisting of an unaccompanied song performed by one or more people improvising on a particular subject. Meykhana is distinct from spoken word poetry in that i ...
and ashiq art are among the many musical traditions of Azerbaijan. Mugham is usually a suite with poetry and instrumental interludes. When performing mugham, the singers have to transform their emotions into singing and music. In contrast to the mugham traditions of Central Asian countries, Azerbaijani mugham is more free-form and less rigid; it is often compared to the improvised field of jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
. UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
proclaimed the Azerbaijani mugham tradition a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity
The Proclamation of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity was made by the Director-General of UNESCO starting in 2001 to raise awareness of intangible cultural heritage and encourage local communities to protect them and th ...
on 7 November 2003. Meykhana is a kind of traditional Azerbaijani distinctive folk unaccompanied song, usually performed by several people improvising on a particular subject.
Ashiq combines poetry, storytelling, dance, and vocal and instrumental music into a traditional performance art that stands as a symbol of Azerbaijani culture. It is a mystic troubadour or traveling bard who sings and plays the saz. This tradition has its origin in the Shamanistic beliefs of ancient Turkic peoples
The Turkic peoples are a collection of diverse ethnic groups of West, Central, East, and North Asia as well as parts of Europe, who speak Turkic languages.. "Turkic peoples, any of various peoples whose members speak languages belonging t ...
.["ashik, shaman"](_blank)
– ''European University Institute, Florence, Italy'' (retrieved 10 August 2006). Ashiqs' songs are semi-improvised around common bases. Azerbaijan's ashiq art was included in the list of Intangible Cultural Heritage
An intangible cultural heritage (ICH) is a practice, representation, expression, knowledge, or skill considered by UNESCO to be part of a place's cultural heritage. Buildings, historic places, monuments, and artifacts are cultural property. Int ...
by the UNESCO on 30 September 2009.
Since the mid-1960s, Western-influenced Azerbaijani pop music
Azerbaijani pop music ( az, Azərbaycan pop musiqisi) is a pop music created in Azerbaijan. The emergence of Azerbaijani pop music dates back to the mid-20th century. Growth of new generation of musicians in the 1970s positively influenced Azerba ...
, in its various forms, that has been growing in popularity in Azerbaijan, while genres such as rock
Rock most often refers to:
* Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids
* Rock music, a genre of popular music
Rock or Rocks may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...
and hip hop are widely produced and enjoyed. Azerbaijani pop and Azerbaijani folk music
Azerbaijani folk music ( Azerbaijani: ''Azərbaycan Xalq Musiqisi'') combines the distinct cultural values of all civilisations that have lived in Azerbaijan and Iranian Azerbaijan region.
Apart from the common music found all-around Azerbaijan, ...
arose with the international popularity of performers like Alim Qasimov
Alim Hamza oghlu Qasimov ( az, Alim Həmzə oğlu Qasımov; born August 14, 1957) is an Azerbaijani musician and one of the foremost mugham singers in Azerbaijan. He was awarded the International Music Council-UNESCO Music Prize in 1999, one of ...
, Rashid Behbudov
Rashid Behbudov ( az, Rəşid Məcid oğlu Behbudov, Azerbaijani Cyrillic: Рашид Бейбутов; 14 December 1915 – 9 June 1989) was a Soviet and Azerbaijani singer and actor.
Rashid Behbudov was born in Tbilisi in 1915. His father, ...
, Vagif Mustafazadeh
Vagif Mustafazadeh ( az, Vaqif Mustafazadə; March 16, 1940 – December 16, 1979), also known as Vaqif Mustafa-Zadeh, was a Soviet- Azerbaijani jazz pianist and composer, acclaimed for fusing jazz and the traditional Azerbaijani folk music known ...
, Muslim Magomayev, Shovkat Alakbarova
Shovkat Feyzulla qizi Alakbarova ( az, Şövkət Ələkbərova) (20 October 1922 in Baku – 7 February 1993 in Baku) was an Azerbaijani singer.
Life and career development
Shovkat Alakbarova was born to Azerbaijani people, Azerbaijani paren ...
and Rubaba Muradova
Rubaba Khalil qizi Muradova ( az, Rübabə Muradova), born Rubaba Ishragi (21 March 1930 – 28 August 1983), was an Iranian and Azerbaijani opera ( mezzo-soprano) and folk singer. She graduated from the Zeynalli College of Music in Baku and w ...
. Azerbaijan is an enthusiastic participant in the Eurovision Song Contest. Azerbaijan made its debut appearance at the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest
The Eurovision Song Contest (), sometimes abbreviated to ESC and often known simply as Eurovision, is an international songwriting competition organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), featuring participants representing pr ...
. The country's entry gained third place in 2009 and fifth the following year. Ell and Nikki won the first place at the Eurovision Song Contest 2011
The Eurovision Song Contest 2011 was the 56th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Düsseldorf, Germany, following the country's victory at the with the song "Satellite" by Lena. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union ...
with the song " Running Scared", entitling Azerbaijan to host the contest in 2012
File:2012 Events Collage V3.png, From left, clockwise: The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia lies capsized after the Costa Concordia disaster; Damage to Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, New Jersey as a result of Hurricane Sandy; People gather ...
, in Baku. They have qualified for every Grand Final up until the 2018 edition of the contest, entering with X My Heart by singer Aisel.
There are dozens of Azerbaijani folk dances. They are performed at formal celebrations and the dancers wear national clothes like the Chokha
A chokha or ; ab, акәымжәы, akʷymzhʷy; ady, цые, tsiya; kbd, цей, tsei; fa, چوقا, chughā; hy, չուխայ, choukha(y); az, çuxa; krc, чепкен, çepken; kum, чепген, çepgen; nog, шепкен, şepken ...
, which is well-preserved within the national dances. Most dances have a very fast rhythm.
Literature
Among the medieval authors born within the territorial limits of modern Azerbaijani Republic was Persian poet and philosopher Nizami, called Ganjavi after his place of birth, Ganja
Ganja (, ; ) is one of the oldest and most commonly used synonyms for marijuana. Its usage in English dates to before 1689.
Etymology
''Ganja'' is borrowed from Hindi/Urdu ( hi, गांजा, links=no, ur, , links=no, IPA: aːɲd ...
, who was the author of the Khamsa Khamsa (Arabic, lit. "five") may refer to:
* Hamsa, a popular amulet in the Middle East and North Africa, also romanized as ''khamsa''
* Al Khamsa, a bloodline for Arabian horses that traces back to five mares
* Al Khamsa (organization), a nonprofi ...
("The Quintuplet"), composed of five romantic poems, including "The Treasure of Mysteries", "Khosrow and Shīrīn", and "Leyli and Mejnūn".
The earliest known figure in written Azerbaijani literature was Izzeddin Hasanoghlu, who composed a divan
A divan or diwan ( fa, دیوان, ''dīvān''; from Sumerian ''dub'', clay tablet) was a high government ministry in various Islamic states, or its chief official (see ''dewan'').
Etymology
The word, recorded in English since 1586, meanin ...
consisting of Persian and Azerbaijani ghazal
The ''ghazal'' ( ar, غَزَل, bn, গজল, Hindi-Urdu: /, fa, غزل, az, qəzəl, tr, gazel, tm, gazal, uz, gʻazal, gu, ગઝલ) is a form of amatory poem or ode, originating in Arabic poetry. A ghazal may be understood as a ...
s.[A.Caferoglu, "Adhari(azeri)", in ''Encyclopedia of Islam'', (new edition), Vol. 1, (Leiden, 1986)] In Persian ghazals he used his pen-name, while his Azerbaijani ghazals were composed under his own name of Hasanoghlu.
Classical literature in Azerbaijani was formed in the 14th century based on the various Early Middle Ages dialects of Tabriz
Tabriz ( fa, تبریز ; ) is a city in northwestern Iran, serving as the capital of East Azerbaijan Province. It is the List of largest cities of Iran, sixth-most-populous city in Iran. In the Quri Chay, Quru River valley in Iran's historic Aze ...
and Shirvan. Among the poets of this period were Gazi Burhanaddin, Haqiqi (pen-name of Jahan Shah Qara Qoyunlu), and Habibi. The end of the 14th century was also the period of starting literary activity of Imadaddin Nasimi
Alī Imādud-Dīn Nasīmī ( az, Seyid Əli İmadəddin Nəsimi سئید علی عمادالدّین نسیمی, fa, عمادالدین نسیمی), often known as Nesimi, was a 14th-century Azerbaijani Ḥurūfī poet. Known mostly by his ...
, one of the greatest Azerbaijani Hurufi
Hurufism ( ar, حُرُوفِيَّة ''ḥurūfiyyah'', Persian: حُروفیان ''hōrufiyān'') was a Sufi movement based on the mysticism of letters (''ḥurūf''), which originated in Astrabad and spread to areas of western Iran (Persia) ...
mystical poets of the late 14th and early 15th centuries and one of the most prominent early divan masters in Turkic literary history, who also composed poetry in Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
and Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
. The divan and ghazal styles were further developed by poets Qasem-e Anvar
Mu'in al-Din Ali Husayni Sarabi Tabrizi, commonly known by his ''laqab'' (honorific title) of Qasim-i Anvar ( fa, قاسم انوار; 1356 – 1433) was a Sufi mystic, poet, and a leading ''da'i'' (preacher) of the Safavid order.
Biography
Born ...
, Fuzuli and Khatai
Ismail I ( fa, اسماعیل, Esmāʿīl, ; July 17, 1487 – May 23, 1524), also known as Shah Ismail (), was the founder of the Safavid dynasty of Safavid Iran, Iran, ruling as its King of Kings (''Shahanshah'') from 1501 to 1524. His re ...
(pen-name of Safavid
Safavid Iran or Safavid Persia (), also referred to as the Safavid Empire, '. was one of the greatest Iranian empires after the 7th-century Muslim conquest of Persia, which was ruled from 1501 to 1736 by the Safavid dynasty. It is often conside ...
Shah Ismail I
Ismail I ( fa, اسماعیل, Esmāʿīl, ; July 17, 1487 – May 23, 1524), also known as Shah Ismail (), was the founder of the Safavid dynasty of Safavid Iran, Iran, ruling as its King of Kings (''Shahanshah'') from 1501 to 1524. His re ...
).
The ''Book of Dede Korkut
The ''Book of Dede Korkut'' or ''Book of Korkut Ata'' ( az, Kitabi-Dədə Qorqud, ; tk, Kitaby Dädem Gorkut; tr, Dede Korkut Kitabı) is the most famous among the epic stories of the Oghuz Turks. The stories carry morals and values signific ...
'' consists of two manuscripts copied in the 16th century,[Michael E. Meeker, "The Dede Korkut Ethic", International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 24, No. 3 (Aug. 1992), 395–417. excerpt: The Book of Dede Korkut is an early record of oral Turkic folktales in Anatolia, and as such, one of the mythic charters of Turkish nationalist ideology. The oldest versions of the Book of Dede Korkut consist of two manuscripts copied in the 16th century. The twelve stories that are recorded in these manuscripts are believed to be derived from a cycle of stories and songs circulating among Turkic peoples living in northeastern Anatolia and northwestern Azerbaijan. According to Lewis (1974), an older substratum of these oral traditions dates to conflicts between the ancient Oghuz and their Turkish rivals in Central Asia (the Pecheneks and the Kipchaks), but this substratum has been clothed in references to the 14th-century campaigns of the Akkoyunlu Confederation of Turkic tribes against the Georgians, the Abkhaz, and the Greeks in Trebizond. Such stories and songs would have emerged no earlier than the beginning of the 13th century, and the written versions that have reached us would have been composed no later than the beginning of the 15th century. By this time, the Turkic peoples in question had been in touch with Islamic civilization for several centuries, had come to call themselves "Turcoman" rather than "Oghuz," had close associations with sedentary and urbanized societies, and were participating in Islamized regimes that included nomads, farmers, and townsmen. Some had abandoned their nomadic way of life altogether.] and was not written earlier than the 15th century.[Cemal Kafadar(1995), "in Between Two Worlds: Construction of the Ottoman states", University of California Press, 1995. Excerpt: "It was not earlier than the fifteenth century. Based on the fact that the author is buttering up both the Akkoyunlu and Ottoman rulers, it has been suggested that the composition belongs to someone living in the undefined border region lands between the two states during the reign of Uzun Hassan (1466–78). G. Lewis, on the other hand, dates the composition "fairly early in the 15th century at least."][İlker Evrım Bınbaş, Encyclopædia Iranica, "Oguz Khan Narratives]
Encyclopædia Iranica , Articles
Retrieved October 2010. "The Ketāb-e Dede Qorqut, which is a collection of twelve stories reflecting the oral traditions of the Turkmens in the 15th-century eastern Anatolia, is also called Oḡuz-nāma" It is a collection of 12 stories reflecting the oral tradition of Oghuz nomads. The 16th-century poet, Muhammed Fuzuli produced his timeless philosophical and lyrical ''Qazals'' in Arabic, Persian, and Azerbaijani. Benefiting immensely from the fine literary traditions of his environment, and building upon the legacy of his predecessors, Fuzuli was destined to become the leading literary figure of his society. His major works include ''The Divan of Ghazals'' and ''The Qasidas''. In the same century, Azerbaijani literature further flourished with the development of Ashik ( az, Aşıq) poetic genre of bards. During the same period, under the pen-name of Khatāī ( ar, خطائی for ''sinner'') Shah Ismail I wrote about 1400 verses in Azerbaijani, which were later published as his ''Divan''. A unique literary style known as ''qoshma'' ( az, qoşma for ''improvisation'') was introduced in this period, and developed by Shah Ismail and later by his son and successor, Shah Tahmasp I
Tahmasp I ( fa, طهماسب, translit=Ṭahmāsb or ; 22 February 1514 – 14 May 1576) was the second shah of Safavid Iran from 1524 to 1576. He was the eldest son of Ismail I and his principal consort, Tajlu Khanum. Ascending the throne after t ...
.[V. Minorsky, "The Poetry of Shah Ismail I," ''Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies'', University of London 10/4 (1942): 1006–53.]
In the span of the 17th and 18th centuries, Fuzuli's unique genres as well Ashik poetry were taken up by prominent poets and writers such as Qovsi of Tabriz
Qovsi Tabrizi ( az, قوسی تبریزی; fa, قوسی تبریزی; born ''Alijan Ismailoghlu Qovsi'') was a 17th century Azerbaijani poet.
Life
Qovsi Tabrizi was born in Tabriz in the first quarter of the 17th century. His father, Ismail Qo ...
, Shah Abbas Sani, , Nishat, Molla Vali Vidadi
Molla Vali Vidadi ( az, Molla Vəli Vidadi) (17 March 1709, Shamkir – 13 May 1809, near Gazakh) was an Azerbaijani poet.
Little is known about Vidadi. He spent most of his life in his native town of Shamkir (then called Shamkhor) where he ...
, Molla Panah Vagif
Molla Panah ( az, Molla Pənah), better known by his pen-name Vagif (), was an 18th-century Azerbaijani poet, statesman and diplomat. He is regarded as the founder of the realism genre in Azerbaijani poetry. He served as the vizier—the minist ...
, Amani, Zafar and others. Along with Turks, Turkmens
Turkmens ( tk, , , , ; historically "the Turkmen"), sometimes referred to as Turkmen Turks ( tk, , ), are a Turkic ethnic group native to Central Asia, living mainly in Turkmenistan, northern and northeastern regions of Iran and north-weste ...
and Uzbeks
The Uzbeks ( uz, , , , ) are a Turkic ethnic group native to the wider Central Asian region, being among the largest Turkic ethnic group in the area. They comprise the majority population of Uzbekistan, next to Kazakh and Karakalpak mino ...
, Azerbaijanis
Azerbaijanis (; az, Azərbaycanlılar, ), Azeris ( az, Azərilər, ), or Azerbaijani Turks ( az, Azərbaycan Türkləri, ) are a Turkic people living mainly in northwestern Iran and the Republic of Azerbaijan. They are the second-most numer ...
also celebrate the Epic of Koroglu
The ''Epic of Koroghlu'' ( az, , tr, ; tk, , uz, ) is a heroic legend prominent in the oral traditions of the Turkic peoples, mainly the Oghuz Turks. The legend typically describes a hero who seeks to avenge a wrong. It was often put t ...
(from az, kor oğlu for ''blind man's son''), a legendary folk hero. Several documented versions of Koroglu epic remain at the Institute for Manuscripts of the National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan.
Modern Azerbaijani literature in Azerbaijan is based on the Shirvani dialect mainly, while in Iran it is based on the Tabrizi one. The first newspaper in Azerbaijani, ''Akinchi
''Akinchi'' ( az, Əkinçi, ), also transliterated as ''Ekinchi'' ("The Cultivator"), was the first Azerbaijani-language newspaper, published in Baku (then part of the Russian Empire, now the capital of the Republic of Azerbaijan) between 1875 an ...
'' was published in 1875. In the mid-19th century, it was taught in the schools of Baku
Baku (, ; az, Bakı ) is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. Baku is located below sea level, which makes it the lowest lying national capital in the world a ...
, Ganja
Ganja (, ; ) is one of the oldest and most commonly used synonyms for marijuana. Its usage in English dates to before 1689.
Etymology
''Ganja'' is borrowed from Hindi/Urdu ( hi, गांजा, links=no, ur, , links=no, IPA: aːɲd ...
, Shaki, Tbilisi
Tbilisi ( ; ka, თბილისი ), in some languages still known by its pre-1936 name Tiflis ( ), is the Capital city, capital and the List of cities and towns in Georgia (country), largest city of Georgia (country), Georgia, lying on the ...
, and Yerevan
Yerevan ( , , hy, Երևան , sometimes spelled Erevan) is the capital and largest city of Armenia and one of the world's List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited cities. Situated along the Hrazdan River, Y ...
. Since 1845, it was also taught in the University of Saint Petersburg in Russia.
Folk art
Azerbaijanis have a rich and distinctive culture, a major part of which is decorative
Beauty is commonly described as a feature of objects that makes these objects pleasurable to perceive. Such objects include landscapes, sunsets, humans and works of art. Beauty, together with art and taste, is the main subject of aesthetics, o ...
and applied art. This art form is represented by a wide range of handicrafts, such as chasing, jeweling, engraving in metal, carving in wood, stone, bone, carpet-making, lasing, pattern weaving and printing, and knitting and embroidery. Each of these types of decorative art, evidence of the endowments of the Azerbaijan nation, is very much in favor here. Many interesting facts pertaining to the development of arts and crafts in Azerbaijan were reported by numerous merchants, travelers, and diplomats who had visited these places at different times.
The Azerbaijani carpet
Azerbaijani rugs ( az, Azərbaycan xalçaları) are traditional rugs made in Azerbaijan. The Azerbaijani rug is a handmade textile of various sizes, with a dense texture and a pile or pile-less surface, whose patterns are characteristic of Azerbai ...
is a traditional handmade textile of various sizes, with a dense texture and a pile or pile-less surface, whose patterns are characteristic of Azerbaijan's many carpet-making regions. In November 2010 the Azerbaijani carpet was proclaimed a Masterpiece of Intangible Heritage by UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
.
Azerbaijan has been since ancient times known as a center of a large variety of crafts. The archeological dig on the territory of Azerbaijan testifies to the well-developed agriculture, stock raising, metalworking, pottery, ceramics, and carpet-weaving that date as far back as to the 2nd millennium BC. Archeological sites in Dashbulaq, Hasansu, Zayamchai, and Tovuzchai uncovered from the BTC pipeline have revealed early Iron Age artifacts.
Azerbaijani carpets can be categorized under several large groups and a multitude of subgroups. Scientific research of the Azerbaijani carpet is connected with the name of Latif Karimov, a prominent scientist and artist. It was his classification that related the four large groups of carpets with the four geographical zones of Azerbaijan, Guba-Shirvan, Ganja-Kazakh, Karabakh and Tabriz.
Cuisine
The traditional cuisine is famous for an abundance of vegetables and greens used seasonally in the dishes. Fresh herbs, including mint, cilantro (coriander), dill, basil, parsley, tarragon, leeks, chives, thyme, marjoram, green onion, and watercress, are very popular and often accompany main dishes on the table. Climatic diversity and fertility of the land are reflected in the national dishes, which are based on fish from the Caspian Sea
The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, often described as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia; east of the Caucasus, west of the broad steppe of Central Asia ...
, local meat (mainly mutton and beef), and an abundance of seasonal vegetables and greens. Saffron-rice plov
Pilaf ( US spelling) or pilau ( UK spelling) is a rice dish, or in some regions, a wheat dish, whose recipe usually involves cooking in stock or broth, adding spices, and other ingredients such as vegetables or meat, and employing some techniq ...
is the flagship food in Azerbaijan and black tea is the national beverage. Azerbaijanis often use traditional armudu
Armudu or Armudu stəkan (Armudu glass), sometimes called Boğmalı is a kind of drinking glass used for black tea in Azerbaijan. It is similar to the Turkish traditional tea glass called ''ince belli bardak'' (lit. "slim-waisted glass") (see also ...
(pear-shaped) glass as they have very strong tea culture. Popular traditional dishes include bozbash (lamb soup that exists in several regional varieties with the addition of different vegetables), qutab
Qutab (, Tat: ''gitob'') is an Azerbaijani dish made from thinly rolled dough that is cooked briefly on a convex griddle known as a saj.
Composition
When the weather gets warmer, the number of dishes made from wild plants increases. Qutab belo ...
(fried turnover with a filling of greens or minced meat) and dushbara
Joshpara is a kind of dumpling popular in Central Asia, South Caucasus and the Middle East. They are made of unleavened wheat dough squares filled with ground meat and condiments. In observance of the Islamic dietary rules, the meat filling is usu ...
(sort of dumplings of dough filled with ground meat and flavor).
Architecture
Azerbaijani architecture typically combines elements of East and West
West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sunset, Sun sets on the Earth.
Etymology
The word "west" is a Germanic languages, German ...
. Azerbaijani architecture has heavy influences from Persian architecture. Many ancient architectural treasures such as the Maiden Tower and Palace of the Shirvanshahs
The Palace of the Shirvanshahs ( az, Şirvanşahlar Sarayı, fa, کاخ شروانشاهان) is a 15th-century palace built by the Shirvanshahs and described by UNESCO as "one of the pearls of Azerbaijan's architecture". It is located in the ...
in the Walled City of Baku
Old City or Inner City ( az, İçərişəhər) is the historical core of Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. The Old City is the most ancient part of Baku, which is surrounded by walls. In 2007, the Old City had a population of about 3000 people. I ...
survive in modern Azerbaijan. Entries submitted on the UNESCO World Heritage tentative list include the Ateshgah of Baku
, image = Jahlinmarceta baku temple.jpg
, caption =
, former_names =
, map_type =
, building_type = Ancient Syncretic (Zoroastrian/Hindu) Fire Temple, Mandir and Gurudwara
, architectural_style =
, str ...
, Momine Khatun Mausoleum, Hirkan National Park
Hirkan National Park ( az, Hirkan Milli Parkı) — is a National Parks of Azerbaijan, national park of Azerbaijan. It was established in an area in Lankaran Rayon and Astara Rayon administrative districts on February 9, 2004 on the basis of the ...
, Binagadi asphalt lake
The Binagadi asphalt lake (or Binagadi tar pits) are a cluster of tar pits in urban Baku, Azerbaijan. Asphaltum or tar has seeped up from the ground in this area for tens of thousands of years. The tar is often covered with dust, leaves, or wat ...
, Lökbatan Mud Volcano
Lökbatan Mud Volcano ( az, Lökbatan palçıq vulkanı), also known as Lok-Batan Mud Cone, is a mud volcano located in Absheron Peninsula near the settlement of Lökbatan in Qaradağ raion of Baku, Azerbaijan. The mud volcano erupted in 1977 an ...
, Shusha State Historical and Architectural Reserve, Baku Stage Mountain, Caspian Shore Defensive Constructions, Ordubad National Reserve and the Palace of Shaki Khans
The Palace of Shaki Khans ( az, Şəki xanlarının sarayı) in Shaki, Azerbaijan was a summer residence for the Shaki Khans. It was built in 1797 by Muhammed Hasan Khan. The palace was intended to house the Khans who were in charge of controlli ...
.
Among other architectural treasures are Quadrangular Castle
A quadrangular castle or courtyard castle is a type of castle characterised by ranges of buildings which are integral with the curtain walls, enclosing a central ward or quadrangle, and typically with angle towers. There is no keep and frequently ...
in Mardakan, Parigala
Parigala ( az, Pəriqala, literally Fairy Castle) is considered one of Azerbaijan's lesser-known archeological treasures and historical mysteries. The site consists of a limestone brick structure of three rooms with a window, built 300 metres up th ...
in Yukhary Chardaglar, a number of bridges spanning the Aras River, and several mausoleums. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, little monumental architecture was created, but distinctive residences were built in Baku and elsewhere. Among the most recent architectural monuments, the Baku subways are noted for their lavish decor.
The task for modern Azerbaijani architecture is diverse application of modern aesthetics, the search for an architect's own artistic style and inclusion of the existing historico-cultural environment. Major projects such as Heydar Aliyev Cultural Center, Flame Towers
Flame Towers ( az, Alov qüllələri) is a group of three skyscrapers in Baku, Azerbaijan. The height of the tallest tower is . The three flame-shaped towers are intended to symbolize the elements of fire, and are a reference to Azerbaijan's nickna ...
, Baku Crystal Hall, Baku White City
The master plan of Baku White City ( az, Bakı Ağ Şəhər ) refers to the re-development of a portion of Black City, 221-hectare land area, conceptualized to be part of the 2021 strategic plan for Baku.
Development
The project has been de ...
and SOCAR Tower
SOCAR Tower is a skyscraper in Baku, Azerbaijan. It is the 4th tallest building in Baku and in Azerbaijan. The skyscraper serves as the headquarters of SOCAR (State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic). Construction started in 2010 and was comp ...
have transformed the country's skyline and promotes its contemporary identity.
Visual art
The Gamigaya Petroglyphs
Gamigaya rock carvings ( az, Gəmiqaya petroqlifləri) - are dated to the 4th-1st millennia BC including the Bronze and Early Iron Ages in the territory of Ordubad Rayon, not far from Nəsirvaz village's border and Azerbaijan’s border with Armen ...
, which date back to the 1st to 4th millennium BC, are located in Azerbaijan's Ordubad District
Ordubad District ( az, Ordubad rayonu) is one of the 7 districts of the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic of Azerbaijan. The district borders the district of Julfa, as well as the Syunik Province of Armenia, and the East Azerbaijan Province of Iran. ...
. They consist of some 1500 dislodged and carved rock paintings with images of deer, goats, bulls, dogs, snakes, birds, fantastic beings, and people, carriages, and various symbols were found on basalt rocks. Norwegian ethnographer and adventurer Thor Heyerdahl
Thor Heyerdahl KStJ (; 6 October 1914 – 18 April 2002) was a Norwegian adventurer and ethnographer with a background in zoology, botany and geography.
Heyerdahl is notable for his ''Kon-Tiki'' expedition in 1947, in which he sailed 8,000&nb ...
was convinced that people from the area went to Scandinavia
Scandinavia; Sámi languages: /. ( ) is a subregion#Europe, subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, ...
in about 100 AD, took their boat building skills with them, and transmuted them into the Viking boats in Northern Europe.
Over the centuries, Azerbaijani art has gone through many stylistic changes. Azerbaijani painting is traditionally characterized by a warmth of colour and light, as exemplified in the works of Azim Azimzade
Azim Aslan oghlu Azimzade ( az, Əzim Aslan oğlu Əzimzadə; 7 May 1880 – 15 June 1943) was an Azerbaijani artist and caricaturist. He was awarded the honorary title of People's Artist of the Azerbaijan SSR.
Biography
Azim Azimzade w ...
and Bahruz Kangarli
Bahruz Shirali bey oglu Kangarli ( az, Bəhruz Şirəlibəy oğlu Kəngərli; 22 January 1892, Nakhchivan – 7 February 1922, Nakhchivan) was an Azerbaijani painter and graphic artist. He was one of the first professional representatives of Azerb ...
, and a preoccupation with religious figures and cultural motifs. Azerbaijani painting enjoyed preeminence in Caucasus for hundreds of years, from the Romanesque and Ottoman periods, and through the Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
and Baroque
The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...
periods, the latter two of which saw fruition in Azerbaijan. Other notable artists who fall within these periods include Sattar Bahlulzade Sattar Bahlulzade ( az, Səttar Bəhlulzadə; 15 December 1909 – 14 October 1974) was an Azerbaijani painter, best known for his landscape paintings depicting the nature of Azerbaijan. He is considered to be the founder of Azerbaijani Impressioni ...
, Togrul Narimanbekov
Togrul Farman oglu Narimanbekov ( az, Toğrul Fərman oğlu Nərimanbəyov, russian: Тогрул Нариманбеков; 7 August 1930 – 2 June 2013) was one of the prominent modern Azerbaijani artists.
History
Narimbanbekov was born in Bak ...
, Tahir Salahov, Alakbar Rezaguliyev
Alakbar Rezaguliyev (31 January 1903 in Baku, Baku Governorate – 31 January 1974 in Baku) (alternative spelling: Alekper Rzaguliyev) ( az, Ələkbər Rzaquliyev; russian: Алекпер Рзакулиев) was an Azerbaijani artist. He was award ...
, Mirza Gadim Iravani
Mirza Kadym Irevani ( az, Mirzə Qədim İrəvani, میرزا قدیم ایروانی) was an Azerbaijani ornamentalist artist and portraitist, who mostly created "typical Persian miniatures and lacquers", founder of Azerbaijani panel painting, w ...
, Mikayil Abdullayev
Mikayil Huseyn oglu Abdullayev (19 December 1921, Baku - 22 August 2002, Baku) was an Azerbaijani painter, a People's Artist of the former USSR since 1963, and creator of a series of paintings entitled ''Through India''.
Abdullayev was an alumn ...
and Boyukagha Mirzazade
Boyukagha Meshadi oglu Mirzazade ( az, Böyükağa Məşədi oğlu Mirzəzadə, February 21, 1921, Baku – November 3, 2007, Baku) was a prominent Azerbaijani artist, named People's Artist of the Azerbaijan SSR in 1967.
Biography
In 1939, Boyuka ...
.
File:Shaki khan palace interier.jpg, Usta Gambar Karabakhi – Tree of Life
(Palace of Shaki Khans
The Palace of Shaki Khans ( az, Şəki xanlarının sarayı) in Shaki, Azerbaijan was a summer residence for the Shaki Khans. It was built in 1797 by Muhammed Hasan Khan. The palace was intended to house the Khans who were in charge of controlli ...
)
File:Portrait of sitting woman by Irevani.jpg, Mirza Gadim Iravani
Mirza Kadym Irevani ( az, Mirzə Qədim İrəvani, میرزا قدیم ایروانی) was an Azerbaijani ornamentalist artist and portraitist, who mostly created "typical Persian miniatures and lacquers", founder of Azerbaijani panel painting, w ...
– Portrait of sitting woman
(National Art Museum of Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan National Museum of Art ( az, Azərbaycan Milli İncəsənət Muzeyi) is the biggest art museum of Azerbaijan. It was founded in 1936 in Baku and in 1943 was named after Rustam Mustafayev, a prominent Azerbaijani scenic designer and thea ...
)
File:Dağ mənzərəsi – Bəhruz Kəngərli.jpg, Bahruz Kangarli
Bahruz Shirali bey oglu Kangarli ( az, Bəhruz Şirəlibəy oğlu Kəngərli; 22 January 1892, Nakhchivan – 7 February 1922, Nakhchivan) was an Azerbaijani painter and graphic artist. He was one of the first professional representatives of Azerb ...
– Landscape with mountains
(National Art Museum of Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan National Museum of Art ( az, Azərbaycan Milli İncəsənət Muzeyi) is the biggest art museum of Azerbaijan. It was founded in 1936 in Baku and in 1943 was named after Rustam Mustafayev, a prominent Azerbaijani scenic designer and thea ...
)
File:Ruins of Reichstag.jpg, Azim Azimzade
Azim Aslan oghlu Azimzade ( az, Əzim Aslan oğlu Əzimzadə; 7 May 1880 – 15 June 1943) was an Azerbaijani artist and caricaturist. He was awarded the honorary title of People's Artist of the Azerbaijan SSR.
Biography
Azim Azimzade w ...
– Ruins of Reichstag
(National Art Museum of Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan National Museum of Art ( az, Azərbaycan Milli İncəsənət Muzeyi) is the biggest art museum of Azerbaijan. It was founded in 1936 in Baku and in 1943 was named after Rustam Mustafayev, a prominent Azerbaijani scenic designer and thea ...
)
Cinema
The film industry in Azerbaijan dates back to 1898. Azerbaijan was among the first countries involved in cinematography
Cinematography (from ancient Greek κίνημα, ''kìnema'' "movement" and γράφειν, ''gràphein'' "to write") is the art of motion picture (and more recently, electronic video camera) photography.
Cinematographers use a lens to focu ...
, with the apparatus first showing up in Baku
Baku (, ; az, Bakı ) is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. Baku is located below sea level, which makes it the lowest lying national capital in the world a ...
.[Celebrating 100 Years in Film, not 80](_blank)
by Aydin Kazimzade. Azerbaijan International, Autumn 1997 In 1919, during the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, a documentary ''The Celebration of the Anniversary of Azerbaijani Independence'' was filmed on the first anniversary of Azerbaijan's independence from Russia, 27 May, and premiered in June 1919 at several theatres in Baku. After the Soviet power was established in 1920, Nariman Narimanov, Chairman of the Revolutionary Committee of Azerbaijan, signed a decree nationalizing Azerbaijan's cinema. This also influenced the creation of Azerbaijani animation The history of Azerbaijani animation is so far a nearly unexplored field for Western film theory and history. Most of Azerbaijan's production of animation for cinema and television was created during Soviet times. A lengthy history interlocks betwe ...
.
In 1991, after Azerbaijan gained its independence from the Soviet Union, the first Baku International Film Festival East-West was held in Baku. In December 2000, the former President of Azerbaijan, Heydar Aliyev, signed a decree proclaiming 2 August to be the professional holiday of filmmakers of Azerbaijan. Today Azerbaijani filmmakers are again dealing with issues similar to those faced by cinematographers prior to the establishment of the Soviet Union in 1920. Once again, both choices of content and sponsorship of films are largely left up to the initiative of the filmmaker.
Television
There are three state-owned television channels: AzTV, Idman TV and Medeniyyet TV
Medeniyyet TV ( az, Mədəniyyət TV — "Culture TV") is an Azerbaijani government-owned TV channel showcasing culture in Azerbaijan.
Broadcast area
, 99.96% of the population of Azerbaijan is able to receive Medeniyyet TV via terrestrial, cable ...
. There is one public channel and 6 private channels: İctimai Television, Space TV, Lider TV, Azad Azerbaijan TV, , and ARB.
Human rights
The Constitution of Azerbaijan
The Constitution of Azerbaijan ( az, Azərbaycan konstitusiyası) was adopted on 12 November 1995 by popular referendum. This Constitution was the first Constitution of independent Azerbaijan.
The first Constitution of independent Azerbaijan cons ...
claims to guarantee freedom of speech, but this is denied in practice. After several years of decline in press and media freedom, in 2014, the media environment in Azerbaijan deteriorated rapidly under a governmental campaign to silence any opposition and criticism, even while the country led the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe
The Council of Europe (CoE; french: Conseil de l'Europe, ) is an international organisation founded in the wake of World War II to uphold European Convention on Human Rights, human rights, democracy and the Law in Europe, rule of law in Europe. ...
(May–November 2014). Spurious legal charges and impunity in violence against journalists have remained the norm.[Parliamentary Assembly of the ]Council of Europe
The Council of Europe (CoE; french: Conseil de l'Europe, ) is an international organisation founded in the wake of World War II to uphold European Convention on Human Rights, human rights, democracy and the Law in Europe, rule of law in Europe. ...
The Protection of media freedom in Europe
.Background report prepared by Mr William Horsley, special representative for media freedom of the Association of European Journalists
The Association of European Journalists (founded 1961, San Remo) is an organisation promoting the interests of journalists involved in European affairs. It is an NGO in operational relations with UNESCO and enjoys consultative status in the Counc ...
All foreign broadcasts are banned in the country.Freedom House
Freedom House is a non-profit, majority U.S. government funded organization in Washington, D.C., that conducts research and advocacy on democracy, political freedom, and human rights. Freedom House was founded in October 1941, and Wendell Wil ...
Azerbaijan
2015 Press Freedom report
According to the 2013 Freedom House
Freedom House is a non-profit, majority U.S. government funded organization in Washington, D.C., that conducts research and advocacy on democracy, political freedom, and human rights. Freedom House was founded in October 1941, and Wendell Wil ...
Freedom of the Press report, Azerbaijan's press freedom status is "not free", and Azerbaijan ranks 177th out of 196 countries.
Christianity is officially recognized. All religious communities are required to register to be allowed to meet, under the risk of imprisonment. This registration is often denied. "Racial discrimination contributes to the country's lack of religious freedom, since many of the Christians are ethnic Armenian or Russian, rather than Azeri Muslim."
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is a United States government funded organization that broadcasts and reports news, information, and analysis to countries in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Caucasus, and the Middle East where it says tha ...
and Voice of America
Voice of America (VOA or VoA) is the state-owned news network and international radio broadcaster of the United States of America. It is the largest and oldest U.S.-funded international broadcaster. VOA produces digital, TV, and radio content ...
are banned in Azerbaijan. Discrimination against LGBT people
The LGBT community (also known as the LGBTQ+ community, GLBT community, gay community, or queer community) is a loosely defined grouping of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and other queer individuals united by a common culture and social ...
in Azerbaijan is widespread.
During the last few years, three journalists were killed and several prosecuted in trials described as unfair by international human rights organizations. Azerbaijan had the biggest number of journalists imprisoned in Europe in 2015, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is an American independent non-profit, non-governmental organization, based in New York City, New York, with correspondents around the world. CPJ promotes press freedom and defends the rights of journa ...
, and is the 5th most censored country in the world, ahead of Iran and China. Some critical journalists have been arrested for their coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic in Azerbaijan
The COVID-19 pandemic in Azerbaijan is part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 () caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (). The virus was confirmed to have spread to Azerbaijan when its first case was ...
.
A report by an Amnesty International
Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...
researcher in October 2015 points to "...the severe deterioration of human rights in Azerbaijan over the past few years. Sadly Azerbaijan has been allowed to get away with unprecedented levels of repression and in the process almost wipe out its civil society". Amnesty's 2015/16 annual report on the country stated "... persecution of political dissent continued. Human rights organizations remained unable to resume their work. At least 18 prisoners of conscience remained in detention at the end of the year. Reprisals against independent journalists and activists persisted both in the country and abroad, while their family members also faced harassment and arrests. International human rights monitors were barred and expelled from the country. Reports of torture and other ill-treatment persisted.
''The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' reported in April 2017 that "Azerbaijan's ruling elite operated a secret $2.9bn (£2.2bn) scheme to pay prominent Europeans, buy luxury goods and launder money through a network of opaque British companies .... Leaked data shows that the Azerbaijani leadership, accused of serial human rights abuses, systemic corruption and rigging elections, made more than 16,000 covert payments from 2012 to 2014. Some of this money went to politicians and journalists, as part of an international lobbying operation to deflect criticism of Azerbaijan's president, Ilham Aliyev, and to promote a positive image of his oil-rich country." There was no suggestion that all recipients were aware of the source of the money as it arrived via a disguised route.
Sport
Freestyle wrestling has been traditionally regarded as Azerbaijan's national sport, in which Azerbaijan won up to fourteen medals, including four golds since joining the International Olympic Committee
The International Olympic Committee (IOC; french: link=no, Comité international olympique, ''CIO'') is a non-governmental sports organisation based in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is constituted in the form of an association under the Swiss ...
. Currently, the most popular sports include football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
and wrestling.
Football is the most popular sport in Azerbaijan, and the Association of Football Federations of Azerbaijan with 9,122 registered players, is the largest sporting association in the country. The national football team of Azerbaijan demonstrates relatively low performance in the international arena compared to the nation football clubs. The most successful Azerbaijani football clubs are Neftçi, Qarabağ, and Gabala. In 2012
File:2012 Events Collage V3.png, From left, clockwise: The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia lies capsized after the Costa Concordia disaster; Damage to Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, New Jersey as a result of Hurricane Sandy; People gather ...
, Neftchi Baku became the first Azerbaijani team to advance to the group stage of a European competition, beating APOEL
APOEL FC ( el, ΑΠΟΕΛ; short for Αθλητικός Ποδοσφαιρικός Όμιλος Ελλήνων Λευκωσίας, ''Athletikos Podosferikos Omilos Ellinon Lefkosias'', literally "Athletic Football Club of Greeks of Nicosia") ...
of Cyprus 4–2 on aggregate in the play-off round of the 2012–13 UEFA Europa League
The 2012–13 UEFA Europa League was the 42nd season of Europe's secondary club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 4th season since it was renamed from the UEFA Cup to the UEFA Europa League.
The final was played at the Amsterdam Aren ...
. In 2014
File:2014 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Stocking up supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) for the Western African Ebola virus epidemic; Citizens examining the ruins after the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping; Bundles of wat ...
, Qarabağ became the second Azerbaijani club advancing to the group stage of UEFA Europa League
The UEFA Europa League (abbreviated as UEL, or sometimes, UEFA EL), formerly the UEFA Cup, is an annual football club competition organised since 1971 by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) for eligible European football clubs. It ...
. In 2017, after beating Copenhagen
Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...
2–2 ( a) in the play-off round of the UEFA Champions League
The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competit ...
, Qarabağ became the first Azerbaijani club to reach the Group stage. Futsal Futsal is a football-based game played on a hardcourt, hard court smaller than a football pitch, and mainly indoors. It has similarities to five-a-side football and Indoor soccer, indoor football.
Futsal is played between two teams of five players ...
is another popular sport in Azerbaijan. The Azerbaijan national futsal team
The Azerbaijan national futsal team is the national futsal team of Azerbaijan and is controlled by the Association of Football Federations of Azerbaijan. It represents Azerbaijan in international futsal competitions such as the FIFA Futsal World Cu ...
reached fourth place in the 2010 UEFA Futsal Championship
The 2010 UEFA Futsal Championship was the seventh official edition of the UEFA-governed European Championship for national futsal teams. It was hosted by Hungary, between January 19 and January 30, 2010, in two venues located in Budapest ( Papp L ...
, while domestic club Araz Naxçivan clinched bronze medals at the 2009–10 UEFA Futsal Cup
The 2009–10 UEFA Futsal Cup was the 24th edition of Europe's premier club futsal tournament and the 9th edition under the current UEFA Futsal Cup format.
Teams
th Title Holder
Preliminary round
Group A
Group B
:'
Group C
: ...
and 2013–14 UEFA Futsal Cup
The 2013–14 UEFA Futsal Cup was the 28th edition of Europe's premier club futsal tournament and the 13th edition under the current UEFA Futsal Cup format.
Preliminary round
The draw for the preliminary round and the main roud took place on 3 J ...
. Azerbaijan was the main sponsor of Spanish football club Atlético de Madrid
Atlético, Spanish for ''athletics'', or Athletico in English, may refer to:
Sports Teams Athletico
* Athletico SC (Lebanon), a Lebanese football academy
* Athletic Bilbao, or Atletico Bilbao, Basque students athletic club (also forming Athletic ...
during seasons 2013/2014 and 2014/2015, a partnership that the club described should 'promote the image of Azerbaijan in the world'.
Azerbaijan is one of the traditional powerhouses of world chess, having hosted many international chess tournaments and competitions and became European Team Chess Championship
The European Team Championship (often abbreviated in texts and games databases as ''ETC'') is an international team chess event, eligible for the participation of European nations whose chess federations are located in zones 1.1 to 1.9. This more ...
winners in 2009, 2013 and 2017. Notable chess players from the country's chess schools that have made a great impact on the game include Teimour Radjabov
Teimour Boris oghlu Radjabov (also spelled Teymur Rajabov; az, Teymur Boris oğlu Rəcəbov, ; born 12 March 1987) is an Azerbaijani chess grandmaster, ranked number 18 in the world
A former child prodigy, he earned the title of Grandmaster ...
, Shahriyar Mammadyarov
Shahriyar Hamid oghlu Mammadyarov ( az, Şəhriyar Həmid oğlu Məmmədyarov; born 12 April 1985), known internationally as Shakhriyar Mamedyarov , is an Azerbaijani chess Grandmaster (chess), grandmaster. he is ranked No. 1 in Azerbaijan and N ...
, Vladimir Makogonov, Vugar Gashimov and former World Chess Champion
The World Chess Championship is played to determine the world champion in chess. The current world champion is Magnus Carlsen of Norway, who has held the title since 2013.
The first event recognized as a world championship was the 1886 match ...
Garry Kasparov. , country's home of Shamkir Chess a category 22 event and one of the highest rated tournaments of all time.
Backgammon also plays a major role in Azerbaijani culture. The game is very popular in Azerbaijan and is widely played among the local public. There are also different variations of backgammon developed and analyzed by Azerbaijani experts.
Azerbaijan Women's Volleyball Super League
The Azerbaijan Women's Volleyball Super League ( az, Azərbaycan Volleybol Superliqası), is the highest professional women's volleyball league in Azerbaijan. It is run by the Azerbaijan Volleyball Federation. It is considered to be among the top ...
is one of the strongest women leagues in the world. Its women's national team came fourth at the 2005 European Championship. Over the last years, clubs like Rabita Baku
Telekom Baku (formerly named Rabita Baku) was an Azerbaijani women's volleyball club. Telekom was an eight-time champion of Azerbaijani Superleague and the winner of the 2011 FIVB Club World Championship.
History
The Rabita Bank was founded in 2 ...
and Azerrail Baku
Azerrail Baku ('' az, Azərreyl Bakı'') is an Azerbaijani women's volleyball club based in Baku. Azerrail is a three-time champion of Azerbaijan Superleague and the winner of CEV Cup in 2002 and Challenge Cup in 2011.
History
Azerrail was foun ...
achieved great success at European cups. Azerbaijani volleyball players include likes of Valeriya Korotenko
Valeriya Mammadova ( née Korotenko, az, Valeriya Məmmədova; born 29 January 1984) is a retired Azerbaijani volleyball player who played as a Libero. She was a member of Azerbaijan women's national volleyball team and was selected as the Best ...
, Oksana Parkhomenko
Oksana Kurt, also known as Oksana Parkhomenko, (born 28 July 1984 in Baku, Azerbaijan SSR); is a retired Azerbaijani indoor volleyball player, recognized as one of the most successful volleyball players in her country. Kurt is the most capped p ...
, Inessa Korkmaz
Inessa Korkmaz (born 17 January 1972 in Saratov) is a retired female volleyball player from Russia, who is also known as Inessa Emelyanova. She made her debut for the Soviet National Team in 1989. After 2001 she represented Azerbaijan in internat ...
, Natalya Mammadova
Natalya Aleksandrovna Mammadova ( uk, Наталія Мамедова; born 2 December 1984) is a retired Ukrainian and Azerbaijani volleyball player. Natalya played as an outside hitter and is widely recognized as one of the best players of her ...
and Alla Hasanova
Alla Hasanova (born 6 August 1970) is an Azerbaijani volleyball player, who competed for the Women's National Team at the 1994 FIVB Volleyball Women's World Championship in Brazil. At the 2005 Women's European Volleyball Championship in Croatia
...
.
Other Azerbaijani athletes are Namig Abdullayev
Namig Yadulla Abdullayev ( az, Namiq Abdullayev, born 4 January 1971) is a retired Azerbaijani freestyle wrestler, who won a gold medal at the 2000 Summer Olympics, as well as three gold medals at European championships and three silver medals ...
, Toghrul Asgarov
Toghrul Shahriyar oghlu Asgarov (; born on September 17, 1992, Ganja, Azerbaijan) is an Azerbaijani wrestler. He is an Olympic and European champion in freestyle wrestling.
In 2012 Summer Olympics Toghrul Asgarov won Olympic wrestling gold med ...
, Rovshan Bayramov
Rovshan Bayramov ( az, Rövşən Bayramov; born 7 May 1987, Baku, Azerbaijani SSR) is an Azerbaijani wrestler. He is a European and world champion in Greco-Roman wrestling. Moreover, he is a two-time Olympic silver medalist.
...
, Sharif Sharifov
Sharif Naidhajavovich Sharifov (russian: Шариф Наидгаджавович Шарифов, az, Шәриф Шәрифов, italics=no; born November 11, 1988 in Gunukh, Charodinsky District, Dagestan) is a Russian-Azerbaijani male wrestler ...
, Mariya Stadnik
Mariya Stadnik ( uk, Марія Василівна Стадник; Mariya Vasylivna Stadnyk; born 3 June 1988) is a Ukrainian-born Azerbaijani female wrestler. She is a four-time Olympic medalist.
Personal life
Stadnik was born on 3 June 1988 i ...
and Farid Mansurov
Farid Mansurov ( az, Fərid Mansurov) (born May 10, 1982 in Dmanisi, Georgia) is an Azerbaijani wrestler, gold medalist of the 2004 Summer Olympic Games in Greco-Roman wrestling at 66 kg. He retired in 2010, after conceding jaw injury dur ...
in wrestling
Wrestling is a series of combat sports involving grappling-type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. Wrestling techniques have been incorporated into martial arts, combat ...
, Nazim Huseynov, Elnur Mammadli, Elkhan Mammadov (judoka), Elkhan Mammadov and Rustam Orujov in judo, Rafael Aghayev in karate, Magomedrasul Majidov and Aghasi Mammadov in boxing, Nizami Pashayev in Olympic weightlifting, Azad Asgarov in pankration, Eduard Mammadov in kickboxing, and K-1 fighter Zabit Samedov.
Azerbaijan has a Baku City Circuit, Formula One race-track, made in June 2012, and the country hosted its first 2016 European Grand Prix, Formula One Grand Prix on 19 June 2016 and the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021 and 2022. Other annual sporting events held in the country are the Baku Cup tennis tournament and the Tour d'Azerbaïdjan cycling race.
Azerbaijan hosted several major sport competitions since the late 2000s, including the 2013 F1 Powerboat World Championship season, 2013 F1 Powerboat World Championship, 2012 FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup, 2011 AIBA World Boxing Championships, 2010 European Wrestling Championships, 2009 Rhythmic Gymnastics European Championships, European Taekwondo Championships, 2014 European Taekwondo Championships, 2014 Rhythmic Gymnastics European Championships, and 42nd Chess Olympiad, 2016 World Chess Olympiad. On 8 December 2012, Baku
Baku (, ; az, Bakı ) is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. Baku is located below sea level, which makes it the lowest lying national capital in the world a ...
was selected to host the 2015 European Games, the first to be held in the competition's history. Baku also hosted the fourth Islamic Solidarity Games in 2017 and the 2019 European Youth Summer Olympic Festival, and it is also one of the hosts of UEFA Euro 2020, which because of Covid-19 is being held in 2021.
See also
* Outline of Azerbaijan
* Index of Azerbaijan-related articles
* List of World Heritage Sites in Azerbaijan
* ''The Defense & Foreign Affairs Handbook on Azerbaijan'' (2006)
Notes
References
Further reading
* Altstadt, Audrey. ''Frustrated Democracy in Post-Soviet Azerbaijan'' (2018)
* Broers, Broers Laurence. ''Armenia and Azerbaijan: Anatomy of a rivalry'' (Edinburgh University Press, 2019).
* Cornell, Svante E. ''Azerbaijan since independence'' (Routledge, 2015).
* Dragadze, Tamara. "Islam in Azerbaijan: The Position of Women" in ''Muslim Women's Choices'' (Routledge, 2020) pp. 152–163.
* Elliott, Mark. ''Azerbaijan with Georgia'' (Trailblazers Publications, 1999).
* Ergun, Ayça. "Citizenship, National Identity, and Nation-Building in Azerbaijan: Between the Legacy of the Past and the Spirit of Independence." ''Nationalities Papers'' (2021): 1–18
online
* Thomas Goltz, Goltz, Thomas. ''Azerbaijan Diary : A Rogue Reporter's Adventures in an Oil-Rich, War-Torn, Post-Soviet Republic''. M E Sharpe (1998).
* Habibov, Nazim, Betty Jo Barrett, and Elena Chernyak. "Understanding women's empowerment and its determinants in post-communist countries: Results of Azerbaijan national survey." ''Women's Studies International Forum.'' Vol. 62. Pergamon, 2017.
* Olukbasi, Suha. ''Azerbaijan: A Political History''. I.B. Tauris (2011). Focus on post-Soviet era.
External links
General information
Azerbaijan International
Heydar Aliyev Foundation
*
Azerbaijan
''The World Factbook''. Central Intelligence Agency.
Azerbaijan
at University of Colorado at Boulder
Country profile
from BBC
Key Development Forecasts for Azerbaijan
from International Futures
Visions of Azerbaijan Journal
of The European Azerbaijan Society
*
*
Major government resources
President of Azerbaijan website
Azerbaijan State Statistical Committee
United Nations Office in Azerbaijan
Major news media
Network NEWS Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan Today
Trend News Agency
News.Az
Tourism
Azerbaijan Tourism Portal
*
Travel in Azerbaijan
in Visions of Azerbaijan Journal
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