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count for half of the total population. Almost 30 of the total population is found in Tirana County followed by Fier County with 11 and Durrs County with 10. Over 1 million people are concentrated in Tirana and Durrs, making it the largest urban area in Albania. Tirana is one of largest cities in the Balkan Peninsula and ranks seventh with a population about 400,000. The second largest city in the country by population is Durrs, with a population of 113,000, followed by Vlor with a population of 104,513.
Minorities
Issues of ethnicity are a delicate topic and subject to debate. Contrary to official statistics that show an over 97 per cent Albanian majority in the country, minority groups such as Greeks, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Roma and Aromanians have frequently disputed the official numbers, asserting a higher percentage of the country's population. According to the disputed 2011 census, ethnic affiliation was as follows Albanians 2,312,356 82.6 of the total, Greeks 24,243 0.9, Macedonians 5,512 0.2, M |
ontenegrins 366 0.01, Aromanians 8,266 0.30, Romani 8,301 0.3, Balkan Egyptians 3,368 0.1, other ethnicities 2,644 0.1, no declared ethnicity 390,938 14.0, and not relevant 44,144 1.6. On the quality of the specific data the Advisory Committee on the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities stated that "the results of the census should be viewed with the utmost caution and calls on the authorities not to rely exclusively on the data on nationality collected during the census in determining its policy on the protection of national minorities.".
Albania recognises nine national or cultural minorities Aromanian, Greek, Macedonian, Montenegrin, Serb, Roma, Egyptian, Bosnian and Bulgarian peoples. Other Albanian minorities are the Gorani people and Jews. Regarding the Greeks, "it is difficult to know how many Greeks there are in Albania". The estimates vary between 60,000 and 300,000 ethnic Greeks in Albania. According to Ian Jeffries, most of Western sources put the number at around 200,000 |
. The 300,000 mark is supported by Greek government as well. The CIA World Factbook estimates the Greek minority to constitute 0.9 of the total population. The US State Department estimates that Greeks make up 1.17, and other minorities 0.23, of the population. The latter questions the validity of the census data about the Greek minority, due to the fact that measurements have been affected by boycott.
Macedonians and some Greek minority groups have sharply criticised Article 20 of the Census law, according to which a 1,000 fine will be imposed on anyone who will declare an ethnicity other than what is stated on his or her birth certificate. This is claimed to be an attempt to intimidate minorities into declaring Albanian ethnicity; according to them the Albanian government has stated that it will jail anyone who does not participate in the census or refuse to declare his or her ethnicity. Genc Pollo, the minister in charge has declared that "Albanian citizens will be able to freely express their ethnic and |
religious affiliation and mother tongue. However, they are not forced to answer these sensitive questions". The amendments criticised do not include jailing or forced declaration of ethnicity or religion; only a fine is envisioned which can be overthrown by court.
Greek representatives form part of the Albanian parliament and the government has invited Albanian Greeks to register, as the only way to improve their status. On the other hand, nationalists, various organisations and political parties in Albania have expressed their concern that the census might artificially increase the numbers of the Greek minority, which might be then exploited by Greece to threaten Albania's territorial integrity.
Language
The official language of the country is Albanian which is spoken by the vast majority of the country's population. Its standard spoken and written form is revised and merged from the two main dialects, Gheg and Tosk, though it is notably based more on the Tosk dialect. The Shkumbin river is the rough div |
iding line between the two dialects. Also a dialect of Greek that preserves features now lost in standard modern Greek is spoken in areas inhabited by the Greek minority. Other languages spoken by ethnic minorities in Albania include Aromanian, Serbian, Macedonian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Gorani, and Roma. Macedonian is official in the Pustec Municipality in East Albania. According to the 2011 population census, 2,765,610 or 98.8 of the population declared Albanian as their mother tongue mother tongue is defined as the first or main language spoken at home during childhood.
In recent years, the shrinking number of pupils in schools dedicated to the Greek minority has caused problems for teachers. The Greek language is spoken by an important percentage in the southern part of the country, due to cultural and economic links with adjacent Greece. In a 2017 study carried out by Instat, the Albanian government statistical agency, 39.9 of the 2564 years old is able to use at least one foreign language, with English fi |
rst at 40.0, followed by Italian with 27.8 and Greek with 22.9. Among young people aged 25 or less, English, German and Turkish have seen rising interest after 2000. Italian and French have had a stable interest, while Greek has lost much of its previous interest. The trends are linked with cultural and economic factors.
Greek is the second mostspoken language in the country, with 0.5 to 3 of the population speaking it as first language, and with twothirds of mainly Albanian families having at least one member that speaks Greek, most having learned it in the post communist era 1992present due to private schools or migration to Greece. Outside of the small designated "minority area" in the south the teaching of Greek was banned during the communist era. As of 2003 Greek was offered at over 100 private tutoring centres all over Albania and at a private school in Tirana, the first of its kind outside Greece.
Young people have shown a growing interest in German language in recent years. Some of them go to Germa |
ny for studying or various experiences. Albania and Germany have agreements for cooperating in helping young people of the two countries know both cultures better. Due to a sharp rise in economic relations with Turkey, interest in learning Turkish, in particular among young people, has been growing on a yearly basis. Young people, attracted by economic importance of Turkish investments and common values between the two nations, gain from cultural and academic collaboration of universities.
Religion
As of the 2011 census, there were 1,587,608 56.7 Sunni Muslims, 280,921 10.03 Roman Catholics, 188,992 6.75 Eastern Orthodox, 58,628 2.09 Bektashi Muslims, 3,797 0.14 Evangelicals, 1,919 0.07 other Christians, 602 0.02 of other religions and 153,630 5.49 believers without denomination in Albania. 69,995 people 2.5 were irreligious while 386,024 13.79 did not declare their religion. Albania is nevertheless ranked among the least religious countries in the world. Religion constitute an important role in the lives |
of only 39 of the country's population. In another report, 56 considered themselves religious, 30 considered themselves nonreligious, while 9 defined themselves as convinced atheists. 80 believed in God and 40 believed in life after death. However, 40 believed in hell, while 42 believed in heaven.
The preliminary results of the 2011 census seemed to give widely different results, with 70 of respondents refusing to declare belief in any of the listed faiths. The Albanian Orthodox Church officially refused to recognize the results, claiming that 24 of the total population adhered to its faith. Some Muslim Community officials expressed unhappiness with the data claiming that many Muslims were not counted and that the number of adherents numbered some 70 of the Albanian population. The Albanian Catholic Bishops Conference also cast doubts on the census, complaining that many of its believers were not contacted. The Muslim Albanians are spread throughout the country. Orthodox and Bektashis are mostly found in the |
south, whereas Catholics mainly live in the north. In 2008, there were 694 Catholic churches and 425 orthodox churches, 568 mosques and 70 bektashi tekkes in the country.
Albania is a secular and religiously diverse country with no official religion and thus, freedom of religion, belief and conscience are guaranteed under the country's constitution.
During classical times, there are thought to have been about seventy Christian families in Durrs, as early as the time of the Apostles. The Archbishopric of Durrs was purportedly founded by Paul the Apostle, while preaching in Illyria and Epirus. Meanwhile, in medieval times, the Albanian people first appeared within historical records from the Byzantines. At this point, they were mostly Christianised. Islam arrived for the first time in the late 9th century to the region, when Arabs raided parts of the eastern banks of the Adriatic Sea. It later emerged as the majority religion, during centuries of Ottoman rule, though a significant Christian minority remained |
.
During modern times, the Albanian republican, monarchic and later communist regimes followed a systematic policy of separating religion from official functions and cultural life. The country has never had an official religion either as a republic or as a kingdom. In the 20th century, the clergy of all faiths was weakened under the monarchy and ultimately eradicated during the 1950s and 1960s, under the state policy of obliterating all organised religion from the territories of Albania. The communist regime persecuted and suppressed religious observance and institutions and entirely banned religion. The country was then officially declared to be the world's first atheist state. Religious freedom has returned, however, since the end of communism.
Islam survived communist era persecution and reemerged in the modern era as a practised religion in Albania. Some smaller Christian sects in Albania include Evangelicals and several Protestant communities including Seventhday Adventist Church, Church of Jesus Chris |
t of Latterday Saints and Jehovah's Witnesses. The first recorded Protestant of Albania was Said Toptani, who travelled around Europe and returned to Tirana in 1853, where he preached Protestantism. Due to that, he was arrested and imprisoned by the Ottoman authorities in 1864. The first evangelical Protestants appeared in the 19th century and the Evangelical Alliance was founded in 1892. Nowadays, it has 160 member congregations from different Protestant denominations. Following mass emigration to Israel after the fall of communism, there are only 200 Albanian Jews left in the country.
Culture
Symbols
Albania shares many symbols associated with its history, culture and belief. These include the colours red and black, animals such as the golden eagle living across the country, costumes such as the fustanella, plis and opinga which are worn to special events and celebrations, plants such as the olive and red poppy growing as well across the country.
The flag of Albania is a red flag with a black doublehea |
ded eagle positioned in the centre. The red colour used in the flag symbolises the bravery, strength and valour of the Albanian people, while the black colour appears as a symbol of freedom and heroism. The eagle has been used by Albanians since the Middle Ages including the establishment of the Principality of Arbr and by numerous noble ruling families such as the Kastrioti, Muzaka, Thopia and Dukagjini. Gjergj Kastrioti Sknderbeu, who fought and began a rebellion against the Ottoman Empire which halted Ottoman advance into Europe for nearly 25 years, placed the doubleheaded eagle on his flag and seal.
The country's national motto, Ti Shqipri, m jep nder, m jep emrin Shqiptar "You Albania, you give me honour, you give me the name Albanian", finds its origins in the Albanian National Awakening. The first to express this motto was Naim Frashri in his poem Ti Shqipri m jep nder.
Arts
The artistic history of Albania has been particularly influenced by a multitude of ancient and medieval people, traditions an |
d religions. It covers a broad spectrum with mediums and disciplines that include painting, pottery, sculpture, ceramics and architecture all of them exemplifying a great variety in style and shape, in different regions and period.
The rise of the Byzantine and Ottoman Empire in the Middle Ages was accompanied by a corresponding growth in Christian and Islamic art in the lands of Albania which are apparent in examples of architecture and mosaics throughout the country. Centuries later, the Albanian Renaissance proved crucial to the emancipation of the modern Albanian culture and saw unprecedented developments in all fields of literature and art whereas artists sought to return to the ideals of Impressionism and Romanticism. However, Onufri, Kol Idromeno, David Selenica, Kostandin Shpataraku and the Zografi Brothers are the most eminent representatives of Albanian art.
The architecture of Albania reflects the legacy of various civilisations tracing back to the classical antiquity. Major cities in Albania hav |
e evolved from within the castle to include dwellings, religious and commercial structures, with constant redesigning of town squares and evolution of building techniques. Nowadays, the cities and towns reflect a whole spectrum of various architectural styles. In the 20th century, many historical as well as sacred buildings bearing the ancient influence were demolished during the communist era.
Ancient architecture is found throughout Albania and most visible in Byllis, Amantia, Phoenice, Apollonia, Butrint, Antigonia, Shkodr and Durrs. Considering the long period of rule of the Byzantine Empire, they introduced castles, citadels, churches and monasteries with spectacular wealth of visible murals and frescos. Perhaps the best known examples can be found in the southern Albanian cities and surroundings of Kor, Berat, Voskopoj and Gjirokastr. Involving the introduction of Ottoman architecture there was a development of mosques and other Islamic buildings, particularly seen in Berat and Gjirokastr.
A productiv |
e period of Historicism, Art Nouveau and Neoclassicism merged into the 19th century, best exemplified in Kor. The 20th century brought new architectural styles such as the modern Italian style, which is present in Tirana such as the Skanderbeg Square and Ministries. It is also present in Shkodr, Vlor, Sarand and Durrs. Moreover, other towns received their presentday Albaniaunique appearance through various cultural or economic influences.
Socialist classicism arrived during the communist era in Albania after the Second World War. At this period many socialiststyled complexes, wide roads and factories were constructed, while town squares were redesigned and numerous of historic and important buildings demolished. Notable examples of that style include the Mother Teresa Square, Pyramid of Tirana, Palace of Congresses and so on.
Three Albanian archaeological sites are included in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. These include the ancient remains of Butrint, the medieval Historic Centres of Berat and Gj |
irokastr, and Natural and Cultural Heritage of the Ohrid region site shared with North Macedonia since 2019. Furthermore, the royal Illyrian tombs, the remains of Apollonia, the ancient Amphitheatre of Durrs and the Fortress of Bashtov has been included on the tentative list of Albania.
Cuisine
Throughout the centuries, Albanian cuisine has been widely influenced by Albanian culture, geography and history, and as such, different parts of the country enjoy specific regional cuisines. Cooking traditions especially vary between the north and the south, owing to differing topography and climate that essentially contribute to the excellent growth conditions for a wide array of herbs, fruits, and vegetables.
Albanians produce and use many varieties of fruits such as lemons, oranges, figs, and most notably, olives, which are perhaps the most important element of Albanian cooking. Spices and other herbs such as basil, lavender, mint, oregano, rosemary, and thyme are widely used, as are vegetables such as garlic, |
onions, peppers, potatoes, tomatoes, as well as legumes of all types.
With a coastline along the Adriatic and Ionian in the Mediterranean Sea, fish, crustaceans, and seafood are a popular and an integral part of the Albanian diet. Otherwise, lamb is the traditional meat for different holidays and religious festivals for both Christians and Muslims, although poultry, beef, and pork are also in plentiful supply.
Tav kosi "soured milk casserole" is the national dish of Albania, consisting of lamb and rice baked under a thick, tart veil of yoghurt. Frges is another national dish, made up of peppers, tomatoes, and cottage cheese. Pite is also popular, a baked pastry with a filling of a mixture of spinach and gjiz curd or mish ground meat.
Petulla, a traditional fried dough, is also a popular speciality, and is served with powdered sugar or feta cheese and different sorts of fruit jams. Flia consists of multiple crpelike layers brushed with cream and served with sour cream. Krofne, similar to Berliner doughnuts, |
are filled with jam, or chocolate and often eaten during cold winter months.
Coffee is an integral part of the Albanian lifestyle. The country has more coffee houses per capita than any other country in the world. Tea is also enjoyed both at home or outside at cafs, bars, or restaurants. aj Mali Sideritis tea is enormously beloved, and a part of the daily routine for most Albanians. It is cultivated across Southern Albania and noted for its medicinal properties. Black tea with a slice of lemon and sugar, milk, or honey is also popular.
Albanian wine is also common throughout the country, and has been cultivated for thousands of years. Albania has a long and ancient history of wine production, and belongs to the Old World of wine producing countries. Its wine is characterised by its sweet taste and traditionally indigenous varieties.
Media
The freedom of press and speech, and the right to free expression is guaranteed in the constitution of Albania. Albania was ranked 84th on the Press Freedom Index of 2 |
020 compiled by the Reporters Without Borders, with its score steadily declining since 2003. Nevertheless, in the 2020 report of Freedom in the World, the Freedom House classified the freedoms of press and speech in Albania as partly free from political interference and manipulation.
Radio Televizioni Shqiptar RTSH is the national broadcaster corporation of Albania operating numerous television and radio stations in the country. The three major private broadcaster corporations are Top Channel, Televizioni Klan and Vizion Plus whose content are distributed throughout Albania and beyond its territory in Kosovo and other Albanianspeaking territories.
Albanian cinema has its roots in the 20th century and developed after the country's declaration of independence. The first movie theater exclusively devoted to showing motion pictures was built in 1912 in Shkodr by an Austrian distribution company with strong efforts by Albanian painter Kol Idromeno. The opening of other movie theaters followed by 1920 in Shkodr, |
Berat, Tirana and Vlor.
During the Peoples Republic of Albania, Albanian cinema developed rapidly with the inauguration of the Kinostudio Shqipria e Re in Tirana. In 1953, the AlbanianSoviet epic film, the Great Warrior Skanderbeg, was released chronicling the life and fight of the medieval Albanian hero Skanderbeg. It went on to win the international prize at the 1954 Cannes Film Festival. In 2003, the Tirana International Film Festival was established, the largest film festival in the country. Durrs is host to the Durrs International Film Festival, the second largest film festival, taking place at the Durrs Amphitheatre.
Music
Albanian folk music is a prominent part of the national identity, and continues to play a major part in overall Albanian music. Folk music can be divided into two stylistic groups, mainly the northern Gheg varieties, and southern Lab and Tosk varieties. Northern and southern traditions are contrasted by a rugged tone from the north, and the more relaxed southern form of music.
Ma |
ny songs concern events from Albanian history and culture, including traditional themes of honour, hospitality, treachery, and revenge. The first compilation of Albanian folk music was made by two Himariot musicians, Neo Muka and Koo akali, in Paris, during their work with Albanian soprano Tefta TashkoKoo. Several gramophone compilations were recorded at the time by the three artists, which eventually led to the recognition of Albanian isopolyphony as a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage.
Festivali i Kngs is a traditional Albanian song contest organised by the national broadcaster Radio Televizioni Shqiptar RTSH. The festival is celebrated annually since its inauguration in 1962 and has launched the careers of some of Albania's most successful singers including Vae Zela and Parashqevi Simaku. It is significantly a music competition among Albanian performers presenting unreleased songs in premiere, composed by Albanian authors and voted by juries or by public.
Contemporary artists Rita Ora, Bebe Rexha, Era |
Istrefi, Dua Lipa, Ava Max, Bleona, Elvana Gjata, Ermonela Jaho, and Inva Mula have achieved international recognition for their music, while soprano Ermonela Jaho has been described by some as the "world's most acclaimed soprano". Albanian opera singer Saimir Pirgu was nominated for the 2017 Grammy Award.
Traditional clothing
Every cultural and geographical region of Albania has its own specific variety of costume that vary in style, material, colour, shape, detail, and form. Presently, national costumes are most often worn during special events and celebrations, mostly at ethnic festivals, religious holidays, weddings, and by performing dance groups. Some elderly people continue to wear traditional clothing in their daily lives. Clothing was traditionally made mainly from local materials such as leather, wool, linen, hemp fibre, and silk; Albanian textiles are still embroidered in elaborate ancient patterns.
Literature
The Albanian language comprises an independent branch and is a language isolate wit |
hin the IndoEuropean family of languages; it is not connected to any other known living language in Europe. Its origin is conclusively unknown, but it is believed to have descended from an ancient PaleoBalkan language.
The cultural renaissance was first of all expressed through the development of the Albanian language in the area of church texts and publications, mainly of the Catholic region in the northern of Albania, but also of the Orthodox in the south. The Protestant reforms invigorated hopes for the development of the local language and literary tradition, when cleric Gjon Buzuku translated the Catholic liturgy into Albanian, trying to do for Albanian what Martin Luther had done for German. Meshari The Missal written by Gjon Buzuku was published in 1555 and is considered one of the first literary work of written Albanian during the Middle Ages. The refined level of the language and the stabilised orthography must be the result of an earlier tradition of written Albanian, a tradition that is not well u |
nderstood. However, there is some fragmented evidence, predating Buzuku, which indicates that Albanian was written from at least the 14th century.
The earliest evidence dates from 1332 AD with a Latin report from the French Dominican Guillelmus Adae, Archbishop of Antivari, who wrote that Albanians used Latin letters in their books although their language was quite different from Latin. Other significant examples include a baptism formula Unte paghesont premenit Atit et Birit et spertit senit from 1462, written in Albanian within a Latin text by the Bishop of Durrs, Pal Engjlli; a glossary of Albanian words of 1497 by Arnold von Harff, a German who had travelled through Albania, and a 15thcentury fragment of the Bible from the Gospel of Matthew, also in Albanian, but written in Greek letters.
Albanian writings from these centuries must not have been religious texts only, but historical chronicles too. They are mentioned by the humanist Marin Barleti, who in his book Siege of Shkodr Rrethimi i Shkodrs from 15 |
04, confirms that he leafed through such chronicles written in the language of the people in vernacula lingua as well as his famous biography of Skanderbeg Historia de vita et gestis Scanderbegi Epirotarum principis History of Skanderbeg from 1508. The History of Skanderbeg is still the foundation of Skanderbeg studies and is considered an Albanian cultural treasure, vital to the formation of Albanian national selfconsciousness.
During the 16th and the 17th centuries, the catechism E mbsuame krishter Christian Teachings from 1592 written by Lek Matrnga, Doktrina e krishter The Christian Doctrine from 1618 and Rituale romanum 1621 by Pjetr Budi, the first writer of original Albanian prose and poetry, an apology for George Castriot 1636 by Frang Bardhi, who also published a dictionary and folklore creations, the theologicalphilosophical treaty Cuneus Prophetarum The Band of Prophets 1685 by Pjetr Bogdani, the most universal personality of Albanian Middle Ages, were published in Albanian. The most famous Albani |
an writer in the 20th and 21st century is probably Ismail Kadare. He has been mentioned as a possible recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature several times.
Sports
Albania participated at the Olympic Games in 1972 for the first time. The country made their Winter Olympic Games debut in 2006. Albania missed the next four games, two of them due to the 1980 and 1984 boycotts, but returned for the 1992 games in Barcelona. Since then, Albania have participated in all games. Albania normally competes in events that include swimming, athletics, weightlifting, shooting and wrestling. The country have been represented by the National Olympic Committee of Albania since 1972. The nation has participated at the Mediterranean Games since the games of 1987 in Syria. The Albanian athletes have won a total of 43 8 gold, 17 silver and 18 bronze medals from 1987 to 2013.
Popular sports in Albania include Football, weightlifting, basketball, volleyball, tennis, swimming, rugby union and gymnastics. Football is by far the |
most popular sport in Albania. It is governed by the Football Association of Albania , F.SH.F., which was created in 1930 and has membership in FIFA and UEFA. Football arrived in Albania early in the 20th century when the inhabitants of the northern city of Shkodr were surprised to see a strange game being played by students at a Christian mission.
The Albania national football team, ranking 51st in the World in 2017 highest 22nd on 22 August 2015 have won the 1946 Balkan Cup and the Malta Rothmans International Tournament 2000, but had never participated in any major UEFA or FIFA tournament, until UEFA Euro 2016, Albania's first ever appearance at the continental tournament and at a major men's football tournament. Albania scored their first ever goal in a major tournament and secured their first ever win in European Championship when they beat Romania by 10 in a UEFA Euro 2016 match on 19 June 2016. The most successful football clubs in the country are Sknderbeu, KF Tirana, Dinamo Tirana, Partizani and Vl |
laznia.
Weightlifting is one of the most successful individual sport for the Albanians, with the national team winning medals at the European Weightlifting Championships and the rest international competitions. Albanian weightlifters have won a total of 16 medals at the European Championships with 1 of them being gold, 7 silver and 8 bronze. In the World Weightlifting Championships, the Albanian weightlifting team has won in 1972 a gold in 2002 a silver and in 2011 a bronze medal.
Diaspora
Historically, the Albanian people have established several communities in many regions throughout Southern Europe. The Albanian diaspora has been formed since the late Middle Ages, when they emigrated to places such as Italy, especially in Sicily and Calabria, and Greece to escape either various sociopolitical difficulties or the Ottoman conquest of Albania. Following the fall of communism, large numbers of Albanians have migrated to countries such as Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Scandinavia, Switz |
erland, United Kingdom and the United States. Albanian minorities are present in the neighbouring territories such as the west of North Macedonia, the east of Montenegro, Kosovo in its entirety and southern Serbia. In Kosovo, Albanians make up the largest ethnic group in the country. Altogether, the number of ethnic Albanian living abroad its territory is estimated to be higher than the total population inside the territory of Albania.
See also
Outline of Albania
Index of Albaniarelated articles
Bibliography of Albania
Notes
References
Further reading
History of the Party of Labor of Albania. Tirana Institute of MarxistLeninist Studies, 1971. 691 p.
External links
albania.al
president.al
kryeministria.al
parlament.al
Albania at The World Factbook by Central Intelligence Agency CIA
Albanianspeaking countries and territories
Southern European countries
Southeastern European countries
Balkan countries
Member states of NATO
Member states of the Council of Europe
Member states of the Organisation |
internationale de la Francophonie
Member states of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation
Member states of the Union for the Mediterranean
Current member states of the United Nations
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Countries in Europe |
Allah ; , is the common Arabic word for God. In the English language, the word generally refers to God in Islam. The word is thought to be derived by contraction from alilh, which means "the god", and is linguistically related to the Aramaic words Elah and Alh and the Hebrew word El Elohim for God.
The word Allah has been used by Arabic people of different religions since preIslamic times. The preIslamic Arabs worshipped a supreme deity whom they called Allah, alongside other lesser deities. Muhammad used the word Allah to indicate the Islamic conception of God. Allah has been used as a term for God by Muslims both Arab and nonArab and even Arab Christians after the term "alilh" and "Allah" were used interchangeably in Classical Arabic by the majority of Arabs who had become Muslims. It is also often, albeit not exclusively, used in this way by Bbists, Bahs, Mandaeans, Indonesian and Maltese Christians, and Sephardi Jews. Similar usage by Christians and Sikhs in West Malaysia has recently led to political |
and legal controversies.
Etymology
The etymology of the word Allh has been discussed extensively by classical Arab philologists. Grammarians of the Basra school regarded it as either formed "spontaneously" murtajal or as the definite form of lh from the verbal root lyh with the meaning of "lofty" or "hidden". Others held that it was borrowed from Syriac or Hebrew, but most considered it to be derived from a contraction of the Arabic definite article al "the" and "deity, god" to meaning "the deity", or "the God". The majority of modern scholars subscribe to the latter theory, and view the loanword hypothesis with skepticism.
Cognates of the name "Allh" exist in other Semitic languages, including Hebrew and Aramaic. The corresponding Aramaic form is Elah , but its emphatic state is . It is written as in Biblical Aramaic and in Syriac as used by the Assyrian Church, both meaning simply "God". Biblical Hebrew mostly uses the plural but functional singular form Elohim , but more rarely it also uses the |
singular form Eloah .
Usage
PreIslamic Arabians
Regional variants of the word Allah occur in both pagan and Christian preIslamic inscriptions. Different theories have been proposed regarding the role of Allah in preIslamic polytheistic cults. According to the Islamic scholar Ibn Kathir, Arab pagans considered Allah as an unseen God who created and controlled the Universe. Pagans believed worship of humans or animals who had lucky events in their life brought them closer to God. PreIslamic Meccans worshiped Allah alongside a host of lesser gods and those whom they called the daughters of Allah. Islam forbade worship of anyone or thing other than God. Some authors have suggested that polytheistic Arabs used the name as a reference to a creator god or a supreme deity of their pantheon. The term may have been vague in the Meccan religion. According to one hypothesis, which goes back to Julius Wellhausen, Allah the supreme deity of the tribal federation around Quraysh was a designation that consecrated the su |
periority of Hubal the supreme deity of Quraysh over the other gods. However, there is also evidence that Allah and Hubal were two distinct deities. According to that hypothesis, the Kaaba was first consecrated to a supreme deity named Allah and then hosted the pantheon of Quraysh after their conquest of Mecca, about a century before the time of Muhammad. Some inscriptions seem to indicate the use of Allah as a name of a polytheist deity centuries earlier, but nothing precise is known about this use. Some scholars have suggested that Allah may have represented a remote creator god who was gradually eclipsed by more particularized local deities. There is disagreement on whether Allah played a major role in the Meccan religious cult. No iconic representation of Allah is known to have existed. Allah is the only god in Mecca that did not have an idol. Muhammad's father's name was meaning "the slave of Allh".
Christianity
Arabicspeakers of all Abrahamic faiths, including Christians and Jews, use the word "Allah" |
to mean "God". The Christian Arabs of today have no other word for "God" than "Allah", except Jehovah's Witnesses who add the biblical name "Jehovah" to the title "Allah". Similarly, the Aramaic word for "God" in the language of Assyrian Christians is lh, or Alaha. Even the Arabicdescended Maltese language of Malta, whose population is almost entirely Catholic, uses Alla for "God". Arab Christians, for example, use the terms for God the Father, for God the Son, and for God the Holy Spirit. See God in Christianity for the Christian concept of God.
Arab Christians have used two forms of invocations that were affixed to the beginning of their written works. They adopted the Muslim , and also created their own Trinitized as early as the 8th century. The Muslim reads "In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful." The Trinitized reads "In the name of Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, One God." The Syriac, Latin and Greek invocations do not have the words "One God" at the end. This addition |
was made to emphasize the monotheistic aspect of Trinitarian belief and also to make it more palatable to Muslims.
According to Marshall Hodgson, it seems that in the preIslamic times, some Arab Christians made pilgrimage to the Kaaba, a pagan temple at that time, honoring Allah there as God the Creator.
Some archaeological excavation quests have led to the discovery of ancient preIslamic inscriptions and tombs made by Arab Christians in the ruins of a church at Umm elJimal in Northern Jordan, which initially, according to Enno Littman 1949, contained references to Allah as the proper name of God. However, on a second revision by Bellamy et al. 1985 1988 the 5versedinscription was retranslated as "1This inscription was set up by colleagues of Ulayh, 2 son of Ubaydah, secretary 3 of the cohort Augusta Secunda 4 Philadelphiana; may he go mad who 5 effaces it."
The syriac word lh can be found in the reports and the lists of names of Christian martyrs in South Arabia, as reported by antique Syriac documents |
of the names of those martyrs from the era of the Himyarite and Aksumite kingdoms
In Ibn Ishaq's biography there is a Christian leader named Abd Allah ibn Abu Bakr ibn Muhammad, who was martyred in Najran in 523, as he had worn a ring that said "Allah is my lord".
In an inscription of Christian martyrion dated back to 512, references to 'lilah can be found in both Arabic and Aramaic. The inscription starts with the statement "By the Help of 'lilah".
In preIslamic Gospels, the name used for God was "Allah", as evidenced by some discovered Arabic versions of the New Testament written by Arab Christians during the preIslamic era in Northern and Southern Arabia. However most recent research in the field of Islamic Studies by Sydney Griffith et al. 2013, David D. Grafton 2014, Clair Wilde 2014 ML Hjlm et al. 2016 2017 assert that "all one can say about the possibility of a preIslamic, Christian version of the Gospel in Arabic is that no sure sign of its actual existence has yet emerged." Additionally ML Hjl |
m in her most recent research 2017 inserts that "manuscripts containing translations of the gospels are encountered no earlier than the year 873"
Irfan Shahd quoting the 10thcentury encyclopedic collection Kitab alAghani notes that preIslamic Arab Christians have been reported to have raised the battle cry "Ya La Ibad Allah" O slaves of Allah to invoke each other into battle. According to Shahid, on the authority of 10thcentury Muslim scholar AlMarzubani, "Allah" was also mentioned in preIslamic Christian poems by some Ghassanid and Tanukhid poets in Syria and Northern Arabia.
Islam
In Islam, Allah is the unique, omnipotent and only deity and creator of the universe and is equivalent to God in other Abrahamic religions. Allah is usually seen as the personal name of God, a notion which became disputed in contemporary scholarship, including the question, whether or not the word Allah should be translated as God.
According to Islamic belief, Allah is the most common word to represent God, and humble submissi |
on to his will, divine ordinances and commandments is the pivot of the Muslim faith. "He is the only God, creator of the universe, and the judge of humankind." "He is unique and inherently one , allmerciful and omnipotent." No human eyes can see Allah till the Day Of Judgement. The Qur'an declares "the reality of Allah, His inaccessible mystery, His various names, and His actions on behalf of His creatures." Allah doesn't depend on anything. God is not a part of the Christian Trinity. God has no parents and no children.
The concept correlates to the Tawhid, where chapter 112 of the Qur'an Al'Ikhls, The Sincerity reads SAY, God is one GOD;
the eternal GOD
He begetteth not, neither is He begotten
and there is not any one like unto Him.and in the Ayat ulKursi "Verse of the Throne", which is the 255th verse and the powerful verse in the longest chapter the 2nd chapter of the Qur'an, AlBaqarah "The Cow" states
"Allah! There is no deity but Him, the Alive, the Eternal.
Neither slumber nor sleep overtake |
th Him.
Unto Him belongeth whatsoever is in the heavens and whatsoever is in the earth.
Who could intercede in His presence without His permission?
He knoweth that which is in front of them and that which is behind them,
while they encompass nothing of His knowledge except what He wills.
His throne includeth the heavens and the earth,
and He is never weary of preserving them.
He is the Sublime, the Tremendous."
In Islamic tradition, there are 99 Names of God lit. meaning 'the best names' or 'the most beautiful names', each of which evoke a distinct characteristic of Allah. All these names refer to Allah, the supreme and allcomprehensive divine name. Among the 99 names of God, the most famous and most frequent of these names are "the Merciful" arRamn and "the Compassionate" , including the forementioned above alAad "the One, the Indivisible" and alWid "the Unique, the Single".
Most Muslims use the untranslated Arabic phrase meaning 'if God wills' after references to future events. Muslim discursive pie |
ty encourages beginning things with the invocation of meaning 'In the name of God'. There are certain phrases in praise of God that are favored by Muslims, including "" Glory be to God, "" Praise be to God, "" There is no deity but God or sometimes "l ilha ill inta huwa" There is no deity but You Him and "" God is the Most Great as a devotional exercise of remembering God dhikr.
In a Sufi practice known as dhikr Allah Arabic , lit. "Remembrance of God", the Sufi repeats and contemplates the name Allah or other associated divine names to Him while controlling his or her breath. For example, in countless references in the context from the Qur'an forementioned above
1 Allah is referred to in the second person pronoun in Arabic as "Inta Arabic " like the English "You", or commonly in the third person pronoun "Huwa Arabic " like the English "He" and uniquely in the case pronoun of the oblique form "Hu Huw Arabic " like the English "Him" which rhythmically resonates and is chanted as considered a sacred sound |
or echo referring Allah as the "Absolute Breath or Soul of Life" AlNafs alHayyah Arabic , anNafsu 'layyah notably among the 99 names of God, "the Giver of Life" alMuy and "the Bringer of Death" alMumiyt;
2 Allah is neither male or female who has no gender, but who is the essence of the "Omnipotent, Selfless, Absolute Soul anNafs, and Holy Spirit" arR, notably among the 99 names of God, "the AllHoly, AllPure and AllSacred" alQuddus;
3 Allah is the originator of both before and beyond the cycle of creation, destruction and time, notably among the 99 names of God, "the First, Beginningless" alAwwal, "the End Beyond "the Final Abode" Endless" alAkhir alkhir and "the Timeless" aabr.
According to Gerhard Bwering, in contrast with preIslamic Arabian polytheism, God in Islam does not have associates and companions, nor is there any kinship between God and jinn. PreIslamic pagan Arabs believed in a blind, powerful, inexorable and insensible fate over which man had no control. This was replaced with the Islam |
ic notion of a powerful but provident and merciful God.
According to Francis Edward Peters, "The Qurn insists, Muslims believe, and historians affirm that Muhammad and his followers worship the same God as the Jews . The Quran's Allah is the same Creator God who covenanted with Abraham". Peters states that the Qur'an portrays Allah as both more powerful and more remote than Yahweh, and as a universal deity, unlike Yahweh who closely follows Israelites.
Pronunciation
The word Allh is generally pronounced , exhibiting a heavy lm, , a velarized alveolar lateral approximant, a marginal phoneme in Modern Standard Arabic. Since the initial alef has no hamza, the initial is elided when a preceding word ends in a vowel. If the preceding vowel is , the lm is light, , as in, for instance, the Basmala.
As a loanword
English and other European languages
The history of the name Allh in English was probably influenced by the study of comparative religion in the 19th century; for example, Thomas Carlyle 1840 sometimes |
used the term Allah but without any implication that Allah was anything different from God. However, in his biography of Muammad 1934, Tor Andr always used the term Allah, though he allows that this "conception of God" seems to imply that it is different from that of the Jewish and Christian theologies.
Languages which may not commonly use the term Allah to denote God may still contain popular expressions which use the word. For example, because of the centuries long Muslim presence in the Iberian Peninsula, the word ojal in the Spanish language and oxal in the Portuguese language exist today, borrowed from Arabic inshalla Arabic . This phrase literally means 'if God wills' in the sense of "I hope so". The German poet Mahlmann used the form "Allah" as the title of a poem about the ultimate deity, though it is unclear how much Islamic thought he intended to convey.
Some Muslims leave the name "Allh" untranslated in English, rather than using the English translation "God". The word has also been applied to |
certain living human beings as personifications of the term and concept.
Malaysian and Indonesian language
Christians in Malaysia and Indonesia use Allah to refer to God in the Malaysian and Indonesian languages both of them standardized forms of the Malay language. Mainstream Bible translations in the language use Allah as the translation of Hebrew Elohim translated in English Bibles as "God". This goes back to early translation work by Francis Xavier in the 16th century. The first dictionary of DutchMalay by Albert Cornelius Ruyl, Justus Heurnius, and Caspar Wiltens in 1650 revised edition from 1623 edition and 1631 Latin edition recorded "Allah" as the translation of the Dutch word "Godt". Ruyl also translated the Gospel of Matthew in 1612 into the Malay language an early Bible translation into a nonEuropean language,
made a year after the publication of the King James Version, which was printed in the Netherlands in 1629. Then he translated the Gospel of Mark, published in 1638.
The government of Mal |
aysia in 2007 outlawed usage of the term Allah in any other but Muslim contexts, but the Malayan High Court in 2009 revoked the law, ruling it unconstitutional. While Allah had been used for the Christian God in Malay for more than four centuries, the contemporary controversy was triggered by usage of Allah by the Roman Catholic newspaper The Herald. The government appealed the court ruling, and the High Court suspended implementation of its verdict until the hearing of the appeal. In October 2013 the court ruled in favor of the government's ban. In early 2014 the Malaysian government confiscated more than 300 bibles for using the word to refer to the Christian God in Peninsular Malaysia. However, the use of Allah is not prohibited in the two Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak. The main reason it is not prohibited in these two states is that usage has been longestablished and local Alkitab Bibles have been widely distributed freely in East Malaysia without restrictions for years. Both states also do not ha |
ve similar Islamic state laws as those in West Malaysia.
In reaction to some media criticism, the Malaysian government has introduced a "10point solution" to avoid confusion and misleading information. The 10point solution is in line with the spirit of the 18 and 20point agreements of Sarawak and Sabah.
National flags with "Allah" written on them
Typography
The word is always written without an to spell the vowel. This is because the spelling was settled before Arabic spelling started habitually using to spell . However, in vocalized spelling, a small diacritic is added on top of the to indicate the pronunciation.
In the preIslamic Zabad inscription, God is referred to by the term , that is, aliflamaliflamha. This presumably indicates Al'ilh "the god", without alif for .
Many Arabic type fonts feature special ligatures for Allah.
Since Arabic script is used to write other texts rather than Koran only, rendering as the previous ligature is considered faulty which is the case with most common |
Arabic typefaces.
Unicode
Unicode has a code point reserved for , UFDF2, in the Arabic Presentation FormsA block, which exists solely for "compatibility with some older, legacy character sets that encoded presentation forms directly"; this is discouraged for new text. Instead, the word should be represented by its individual Arabic letters, while modern font technologies will render the desired ligature.
The calligraphic variant of the word used as the Coat of arms of Iran is encoded in Unicode, in the Miscellaneous Symbols range, at code point U262B .
See also
Abdullah name
Allah as a lunar deity
Emblem of Iran
Ismul Azam
Names of God
Further reading
Online
Allah Qur'n, in Encyclopdia Britannica Online, by Asma Afsaruddin, Brian Duignan, Thinley Kalsang Bhutia, Gloria Lotha, Marco Sampaolo, Matt StefonTesc, Noah Tesch and Adam Zeidan
Citations
General references
The Unicode Consortium, Unicode Standard 5.0, AddisonWesley, 2006, , About the Unicode Standard Version 5.0 Book
External links |
Names of Allah with Meaning on Website, Flash, and Mobile Phone Software
Concept of God Allah in Islam
The Concept of Allh According to the Qur'an by Abdul Mannan Omar
Allah, the Unique Name of God
Typography
Arabic Fonts and Mac OS X
Programs for Arabic in Mac OS X
Arabian deities
Arabian gods
Islamic terminology
Middle Eastern gods
Names of God |
Algorithms is a monthly peerreviewed openaccess scientific journal of mathematics, covering design, analysis, and experiments on algorithms. The journal is published by MDPI and was established in 2008. The founding editorinchief was Kazuo Iwama Kyoto University. From May 2014 to September 2019, the editorinchief was Henning Fernau Universitt Trier. The current editorinchief is Frank Werner OttovonGuerickeUniversitt Magdeburg.
Abstracting and indexing
The journal is abstracted and indexed in
See also
Journals with similar scope include
ACM Transactions on Algorithms
Algorithmica
Journal of Algorithms Elsevier
References
External links
Computer science journals
Open access journals
MDPI academic journals
Englishlanguage journals
Publications established in 2008
Mathematics journals
Monthly journals |
Azerbaijan , ; , officially the Azerbaijan Republic or the Republic of Azerbaijan, is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of the South Caucasus region, and is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia and Turkey to the west, and Iran to the south. Baku is the capital and largest city.
The Azerbaijan Democratic Republic proclaimed its independence from the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic in 1918 and became the first secular democratic Muslimmajority state, taking its name from the adjacent region of northwestern Iran for political reasons. In 1922, the country was incorporated into the Soviet Union as the Azerbaijan SSR.
The modern Republic of Azerbaijan proclaimed its independence on 30 August 1991, shortly before the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the same year. In September 1991, the ethnic Armenian majority of the NagornoKarabakh region formed selfproclaimed Republic of |
Artsakh. The region and seven surrounding districts are internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, while negotiations on the resolution of NagornoKarabakh conflict are facilitated by the OSCE. NagornoKarabakh became de facto independent with the end of the First NagornoKarabakh War in 1994.
Following the 2020 NagornoKarabakh war, the seven districts and parts of NagornoKarabakh were returned to Azerbaijani control.
Azerbaijan is a unitary semipresidential republic. It is one of six independent Turkic states and an active member of the Turkic Council and the TRKSOY community. Azerbaijan has diplomatic relations with 182 countries and holds membership in 38 international organizations, including the United Nations, the Council of Europe, the NonAligned Movement, the OSCE, and the NATO PfP program. It is one of the founding members of GUAM, the CIS, and the OPCW. Azerbaijan is also an observer state of the WTO.
The vast majority of the country's population 97 is Muslim, but the constitution does not dec |
lare an official religion and all major political forces in the country are secularist. Azerbaijan is a developing country and ranks 88th on the Human Development Index. It has a high rate of economic development, literacy, and a low rate of unemployment. The ruling party, the New Azerbaijan Party, in power since 1993, has been accused of authoritarian leadership and the deterioration of the country's human rights record, including increasing restrictions on civil liberties, particularly on press freedom and political repression.
Etymology
According to a modern etymology, the term Azerbaijan derives from that of Atropates, a Persian satrap under the Achaemenid Empire, who was later reinstated as the satrap of Media under Alexander the Great. The original etymology of this name is thought to have its roots in the oncedominant Zoroastrianism. In the Avesta's Frawardin Yasht "Hymn to the Guardian Angels", there is a mention of tereptahe ashaon fravashm azamaide, which literally translates from Avestan as "we |
worship the fravashi of the holy Atropatene." The name "Atropates" itself is the Greek transliteration of an Old Iranian, probably Median, 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 and Strabo. Over the span of millennia, the name evolved to Middle Persian, then to , , New Persian and presentday Azerbaijan.
The name Azerbaijan was first adopted for the area of the presentday 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 translite |
ration as Azerbaydzhan . The country's name was also spelled in Cyrillic script from 1940 to 1991 as "".
History
Antiquity
The earliest evidence of human settlement in the territory of Azerbaijan dates back to the late Stone Age and is related to the Guruchay culture of Azykh Cave.
Early settlements included the Scythians during the 9th century BC. Following the Scythians, Iranian Medes 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 around 550 BC. The area was conquered by the Achaemenids leading to the spread of Zoroastrianism.
From the Sasanid period to the Safavid period
The Sasanian Empire turned Caucasian Albania into a vassal state in 252, while King Urnayr officially adopted Christianity as the state religion in the 4th century. Despite Sassanid rule, Albania remained an entity in the region until the 9th century, while fully subordinate to Sassanid Iran, and retained its monarchy. De |
spite 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, as a vassal of the Sasanians, came under nominal Muslim rule due to the Muslim conquest of Persia. The Umayyad Caliphate repulsed both the Sasanians and Byzantines from the South Caucasus and turned Caucasian Albania 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 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 from Central Asia, who adopted a Turkoman ethnonym at the time. The first of these Turkic dynasties established was the Seljuk Empire, which entered the area now known as Azerbaijan by 1067.
The p |
reTurkic population that lived on the territory of modern Azerbaijan spoke several IndoEuropean and Caucasian languages, among them Armenian and an Iranian language, Old Azeri, which was gradually replaced by a Turkic language, the early precursor of the Azerbaijani language of today. Some linguists have also stated that the Tati dialects of Iranian Azerbaijan 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, 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 on the territory of presentday Azerbaijan.
The local dynasty of the Shirvanshahs became a vassal state of Timur's Empire and assisted him in his war with the ruler of the Golden Horde Tokhtamysh. Following Timur's death, two independent and rival states emerged Kara Koyunlu and Aq Qoy |
unlu. 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 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 modernday Iran. The Safavids allowed the Shirvanshahs to remain in power, under Safavid suzerainty, until 1538, when Safavid king Tahmasp I r. 15241576 completely deposed them, and made the area into the Safavid province of Shirvan. The Sunni Ottomans briefly managed to occupy parts of presentday Azerbaijan as a result of the OttomanSafavid War of 15781590; by the early 17th century, they were ousted by Safavid Iranian ruler Abbas I r. 15881629. In the wake of the demise of the Safavid Empire, Baku and its environs were briefly occupied by the Russians as a consequence of the RussoPersian War of 17221723. Despite brief int |
ermissions 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
After the Safavids, the area was ruled by the Iranian Afsharid dynasty. After the death of Nader Shah r. 17361747, many of his former subjects capitalized on the eruption of instability. Numerous selfruling khanates 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 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 geopolitical 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 RussoPersian War of 18041813. The militarily superior Russians ended the RussoPersian War of 18041813 with a victory.
Following Qajar Iran's loss in the 18041813 war, it was forced to concede suzerainty over most of the khanates, along with Georgia and Dagestan to the Russian Empire, per the Treaty of Gulistan.
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. This sparked the final bout of hostilities between the two, the RussoPersian War of 18261828. The resulting Treaty of Turkmenchay, forced Qajar Iran to cede sovereignty over the Erivan Khanate, the Nakhchivan Khanate and the remainder o |
f 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 modernday 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, literature, and language remained widespread amongst Shia and Sunni intellectuals in the Russianheld cities of Baku, Ganja and Tiflis Tbilisi, now Georgia. Within the same century, in postIranian Russianheld East Caucasia, an Azerbaijani na |
tional identity emerged at the end of the 19th century.
After the collapse of the Russian Empire during World War I, the shortlived Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic was declared, constituting the presentday 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 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 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 moderntype university founded in the Muslim East.
By March 1920, it was obvious that Soviet Russia would attack Baku. Vladimir Lenin 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 11th Soviet Red Army invaded it, establishing the Azerbaijan SSR 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 191820 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 a |
s the Treaty of Kars. The previously independent Republic of Aras would also become the Nakhchivan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic within the Azerbaijan SSR by the treaty of Kars. On the other hand, Armenia was awarded the region of Zangezur and Turkey agreed to return Gyumri then known as Alexandropol.
During World War II, 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 of Azerbaijan were awarded orders and medals. Operation Edelweiss carried out by the German Wehrmacht 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 Azerb |
aijan 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 MajorGeneral Azi Aslanov was twice awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union.
Independence
Following the politics of glasnost, initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev, civil unrest and ethnic strife grew in various regions of the Soviet Union, including NagornoKarabakh, 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 coup which occurred in August in Moscow, on 18 October |
1991, the Supreme Council of Azerbaijan adopted a Declaration of Independence 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 on 18 October.
The early years of independence were overshadowed by the First NagornoKarabakh war with the ethnic Armenian majority of NagornoKarabakh backed by Armenia. By the end of the hostilities in 1994, Armenians controlled up to 1416 percent of Azerbaijani territory, including NagornoKarabakh itself. During the war many atrocities and pogroms by both sides were committed including the massacres at Malibeyli and Gushchular, the Garadaghly massacre and the Khojaly massacres, along with the Baku pogrom, the Maraga massacre and the Kirovabad pogrom. 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 Re |
solutions 822, 853, 874, and 884 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 and 484,000 Armenians in Azerbaijan.
Heydar Aliyev, 1993today
In 1993, democratically elected president Abulfaz Elchibey was overthrown by a military insurrection led by Colonel Surat Huseynov, which resulted in the rise to power of the former leader of Soviet Azerbaijan, Heydar Aliyev. 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. 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 ram |
pant 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 AzeriChiragGuneshli 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, Heydar Aliyev's son, became chairman of the New Azerbaijan Party as well as President of Azerbaijan 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 that was boycotted by the main opposition parties as fraudulent. On 27 September 2020, new clashes in the unresolved NagornoKarabakh conflict resumed along the NagornoKarabakh Line of Contact. Both the armed forces of Azerbaijan and Armenia reported military and civilian casualties. The NagornoKarabakh ceasefire agreement and the end of the sixweek war between |
Azerbaijan and Armenia was widely celebrated in Azerbaijan, as they made significant territorial gains.
Geography
Geographically, Azerbaijan is located in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia, straddling Western Asia 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 1,007 kilometers are with Armenia, 756 kilometers with Iran, 480 kilometers with Georgia, 390 kilometers with Russia and 15 kilometers 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 exclave, the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic.
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, toge |
ther covering approximately 40 of the country. The highest peak of Azerbaijan is Mount Bazardz 4,466 m, while the lowest point lies in the Caspian Sea 28 m. Nearly half of all the mud volcanoes on Earth are concentrated in Azerbaijan, these volcanoes were also among nominees for the New7Wonders of Nature.
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 67 km2, and the longest river is Kur 1,515 km, which is transboundary with Armenia. 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 BakuTbilisiCeyhan 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
Azerbaijan is home to a wide variety of landscapes. Over half of Azerbaijan's landmass consists of mountain ridges, crests, highlands, and plateaus which rise up to hypsometric levels of 4001000 meters including the Middle and Lower lowlands, in some places Talis, JeyrancholAjinohur and LangabizAlat foreranges up to 100120 meters, and others from 050 meters and up Qobustan, Absheron. 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 Bazardz peak.
The formation of climate in Azerbaijan is influenced particularly by cold arctic air masses of Scandinavian anticyclone, temperate air masses of Siberian 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 on most foothills and plains of the country. Meanwhile, plains and foothills are characterized by high solar radiation rates.
9 out of 11 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 maximum annual precipitation falls in Lankaran and the minimum in Absheron .
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 humanintroduced industri |
al 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.
The Kura and Aras are the major rivers in Azerbaijan. They run through the KuraAras Lowland. The rivers that directly flow into the Caspian Sea, originate mainly from the northeastern slope of the Major Caucasus and Talysh Mountains and run along the SamurDevechi and Lankaran lowlands.
Yanar Dag, translated as "burning mountain", is a natural gas fire which blazes continuously on a hillside on the Absheron Peninsula on the Caspian Sea near Baku, 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
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, a mountainsteppe 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. 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 can be found in Azerbaijan. The country lies within four ecoregions Caspian Hyrcanian mixed forests, Caucasus mixed forests, Eastern Anatolian montane steppe, and Azerbaijan shrub desert and steppe. Azerbaijan had a 2018 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 6.5510, 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 on 12 November 1995. According to Article 23 of the Constitution, the state symbols of the Azerbaijan Republic are the flag, the coat of arms, and the national anthem. 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 National Assembly 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, with a term of 5 years for each elected member. The elections are held every five years, on the first Sunday of November. The Parliament is not responsible for the formation of the government, but the Constitution requires the approval of the Cabinet of Ministers by Milli Majlis. The New Azerbaijan Party, 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 runup to the election and on election day.
The executive power is held by the President, who is elected for a sevenyear term by direct elections, and the Prime Minister |
. The president is authorized to form the Cabinet, 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 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, and the Economic Court. The president nominates the judges in these courts. The European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice 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 twotiered. The top or highest tier of the government is the Executive Power he |
aded by President. The President appoints the Cabinet of Ministers and other highranking 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 selfgovernment, such as the legal status of municipalities, types of local selfgovernment bodies, their basic powers and relationships to other official entities. The other nominal tier of governance is municipalities Bldiy, 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 El |
ections 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.
Althou |
gh Azerbaijan has held several elections since regaining its independence and it has many of the formal institutions of democracy, it remains classified as "not free" on border with "partly free" by Freedom House. 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. However, on 6 March 2017, ESISC European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center 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 R |
obert 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".
Foreign relations
The shortlived 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" with Turkey.
Azerbaijan has diplomatic relations with 158 countries so far and holds membership in 38 international organizations. It holds |
observer status in the NonAligned Movement and World Trade Organization and is a correspondent at the International Telecommunication Union. On 9 May 2006 Azerbaijan was elected to membership in the newly established Human Rights Council by the United Nations General Assembly. The term of office began on 19 June 2006. Azerbaijan was first elected as a nonpermanent member of the UN Security Council in 2011 with the support of 155 countries.
Foreign policy priorities of Azerbaijan include, first of all, the restoration of its territorial integrity; elimination of the consequences of occupation of NagornoKarabakh and seven other regions of Azerbaijan surrounding NagornoKarabakh; integration into European and EuroAtlantic 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 to |
lerance; 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 country is contributing to peacekeeping efforts in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. Azerbaijan is an active member of NATO's Partnership for Peace program. It also maintains good relations with the European Union 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, instead are significantly smaller.
Military
The history of the modern Azerbaijan army dates back to Azerbaijan Democratic Republic in 1918 when th |
e 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 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 shortlived 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. The armed forces have three branches the Land Forces, the Air Forces and the Navy. Additionally the armed forces embrace several military subgroups that can be involved in state defense when needed. These are the Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the State Border Service, which includes the Coast Guard as well. The Azerbaijan National Guard is a further paramilitary force. It operates as a semiindependent entity of the Special Sta |
te Protection Service, an agency subordinate to the President.
Azerbaijan adheres to the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe and has signed all major international arms and weapons treaties. Azerbaijan closely cooperates with NATO in programs such as Partnership for Peace and Individual Partnership Action Planpfp and ipa. Azerbaijan has deployed 151 of its Peacekeeping Forces in Iraq and another 184 in Afghanistan.
The defense budget of Azerbaijan for 2011 was set at US3.1 billion. In addition to that, 1.36 billion was planned to be used for the needs of the defense industry, which bring up the total military budget to 4.6 billion. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said on 26 June 2011 that the defence spending reached 3.3 billion that year.
Azerbaijan's defense budget for 2013 is 3.7 billion.
Azerbaijani defense industry manufactures small arms, artillery systems, tanks, armors and noctovision devices, aviation bombs, UAV'Sunmanned aerial vehicle, various military vehicles and military planes |
and helicopters.
Administrative divisions
Azerbaijan is divided into 10 economic regions; 66 rayons rayonlar, singular rayon and 77 cities hrlr, singular hr of which 12 are under the direct authority of the republic. Moreover, Azerbaijan includes the Autonomous Republic muxtar respublika of Nakhchivan. The President of Azerbaijan appoints the governors of these units, while the government of Nakhchivan is elected and approved by the parliament of Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic.
Absheron Economic Region
Absheron Aberon
Khizi Xz
Baku Bak
Sumqayit Sumqayt
Aran Economic Region
Aghjabadi Acabdi
Aghdash Ada
Barda Brd
Beylagan Beylqan
Bilasuvar Bilsuvar
Goychay Gyay
Hajigabul Hacqabul
Imishli mili
Kurdamir Krdmir
Neftchala Neftala
Saatly Saatl
Sabirabad Sabirabad
Salyan Salyan
Ujar Ucar
Yevlakh Yevlax
Zardab Zrdab
Mingachevir Mingevir
Shirvan irvan
Yevlakh Yevlax
Mountainous Shirvan Economic Region
Aghsu Asu
Gobustan Qobustan
Ismailly smayll
Shamakhy amax
GanjaQazakh Economic Region
A |
ghstafa Astafa
Dashkasan Daksn
Gadabay Gdby
Qazakh Qazax
Goygol Gygl
Goranboy Goranboy
Samukh Samux
Shamkir mkir
Tovuz Tovuz
Ganja Gnc
Naftalan Naftalan
QubaKhachmaz Economic Region
Quba Quba
Qusar Qusar
Khachmaz Xamaz
Shabran abran
Siyazan Siyzn
KalbajarLachin Economic Region
Gubadly Qubadl
Kalbajar Klbcr
Lachin Lan
Zangilan Zngilan
Lankaran Economic Region
Astara Astara
Jalilabad Clilabad
Lankaran Lnkran
Lerik Lerik
Masally Masall
Yardimly Yardml
Lankaran Lnkran
Nakhchivan
Babek Babk
Julfa Culfa
Kangarli Kngrli
Ordubad Ordubad
Sadarak Sdrk
Shahbuz ahbuz
Sharur rur
Nakhchivan Naxvan
ShakiZagatala Economic Region
Balakan Balakn
Gabala Qbl
Gakh Qax
Oghuz Ouz
Shaki ki
Zaqatala Zaqatala
Shaki ki
Upper Karabakh Economic Region
Aghdam Adam
Fuzuli Fzuli
Jabrayil Cbrayl
Khojaly Xocal
Khojavend Xocavnd
Shusha ua
Tartar Trtr
Khankendi Xankndi
Shusha ua
Note The cities under the direct authority of the republic in italics.
Economy
After gaining independence in 1991, |
Azerbaijan became a member of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Islamic Development Bank, and the Asian Development Bank. The banking system of Azerbaijan consists of the Central Bank of Azerbaijan, commercial banks, and nonbanking 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 and the stateowned International Bank of Azerbaijan, 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 nonoil industry encouraged inflation. Azerbaijan shows some signs of the |
socalled "Dutch disease" because of its fastgrowing energy sector, which causes inflation and makes nonenergy exports more expensive.
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.
In 2008, Azerbaijan was cited as one of the top 10 reformers by the World Bank's Doing Business Report.
Azerbaijan is also ranked 57th in the Global Competitiveness Report for 20102011, above other CIS countries. By 2012 the GDP of Azerbaijan had increased 20fold from its 1995 level.
According to World Bank's Doing Business report 2019, Azerbaijan improved its position in the Ease of doing business rank from 57 to 25. As a result of implementing a record number of reforms mainly involving institutional changes among the 10 top improvers, to do business in Azerbaijan became easier, such as time and cost to get construction permit reduced s |
ignificantly time by 80 days and cost by 12.563 AZN, process of connecting electricity grid rationalized, as well as getting credit simplified.
Energy and natural resources
Twothirds 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 Ahmed AlBelaruri discussed the economy of the Absheron peninsula in antiquity, mentioning its oil in particular. There are many pipelines in Azerbaijan. The goal of the Southern Gas Corridor, 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, chromium, manganese, cobalt, molybdenum, complex ore and antimony. In September 1994, a 30year contract was signed between the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic SOCAR and 13 oil companies, among them Amoco, BP, ExxonMobil, Lukoil and Equinor. As |
Western oil companies are able to tap deepwater oilfields 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 extrabudgetary fund to ensure macroeconomic stability, transparency in the management of oil revenue, and safeguarding of resources for future generations.
Access to biocapacity 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 of consumption. This means they use more biocapacity than Azerbaijan contains. As a result, Azerbaijan is running a biocapacity deficit.
Azeriqaz, a subcompany of SOCAR, intends to ensure full gasification of the country by 2021.
Azerbaijan is one of the sponsors of the eastwest and |
northsouth energy transport corridors. BakuTbilisiKars railway line will connect the Caspian region with Turkey, which is expected to be completed in July 2017. The TransAnatolian gas pipeline TANAP and TransAdriatic 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 signed on 14 September 2017 by SOCAR and coventures BP, Chevron, Inpex, Equinor, ExxonMobil, TP, ITOCHU and ONGC Videsh.
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 crops, green vegetables, viticulture and winemaking, cotton growing and medicinal plants. I |
n some areas it is profitable to grow grain, potatoes, sugar beets, cotton and tobacco. Livestock, dairy products, and wine and spirits are also important farm products. The Caspian fishing industry concentrates on the dwindling stocks of sturgeon 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 CocaCola by CocaCola Bottlers LTD., beer by BakiKastel, 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 wellknown tourist spot in the 1980s. The fall of the Soviet Union, and the First NagornoKarabakh War 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 year |
s, Azerbaijan has also become a popular destination for religious, spa, and health care tourism. During winter, the Shahdag Mountain Resort offers skiing with state of the art facilities.
The government of Azerbaijan 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 visafree score.
Evisa for a visit of foreigners of visarequired 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 fast |
estdeveloping 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 and the southnorth 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 BakuTbilisiCeyhan pipeline BTC became operational in May 2006 and extends more than 1,774 kilometers 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 addit |
ional 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 EUsponsored 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 KarsTbilisiBaku 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 Broadgauge 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 ne |
w 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. 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 20072008; rapid growth is forecast for at least five more years. Azerbaijan was ranked 82nd in the Global Innovation Index in 2020, 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 policymakers 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, Bakcell, Azerfon Nar Mobile, Nakhtel mobile network operators and one CDMA.
In the 21st century a number of prominent Azerbaijani geodynamics and geotectonics scientists, inspired by the fundamental works of Elchin Khalilov and others, designed hundreds of earthquake prediction stations and earthquakeresistant buildings that now constitute the bulk of The Republican Center of Seismic Service.
The Azerbaijan National Aerospace Agency launched its first satellite AzerSat 1 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.
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Demographics
As of January 2019, 52.8 of Azerbaijan's total population of 9,981,457 is urban, with the remaining 47.2 being rural. 50.1 of the total population is female. The sex ratio in the same year was 0.99 males per female.
The 2011 population growthrate 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 1.141,000 people.
The Azerbaijani diaspora is found in 42 countries and in turn there are many centers for ethnic minorities inside Azerbaijan, including the German cultural society "Karelhaus", Slavic cultural center, AzerbaijaniIsraeli community, Kurdish cultural center, International Talysh Association, Lezgin national center "Samur", AzerbaijaniTatar community, Crimean Tatars society, etc.
In total, Azerbaijan has 78 cities, 63 city districts, and one special legal status city. 261 urbantype settlements and 4248 villages follow these.
Ethnicity
The ethnic composition of the population acco |
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