Greater Armenia

Tigranes the Great's Armenian Empire

Greater Armenia (Armenian: Մեծ Հայք, Mets Hayk') is the name given to the state of Armenia that emerged on the Armenian Highlands under the reign of King Artaxias I at the turn of the second century BC. The term was used to refer principally to the fifteen provinces that made up Armenian kingdoms throughout the classical, late antique, and medieval periods by contemporary Armenian and non-Armenian authors alike.^[1]

Though its borders were in a constant state of flux, Greater Armenia roughly encompassed the area stretching from the Euphrates River in the west, the region of Artsakh and parts of independent Azerbaijan and Iranian Azerbaijan to the east, parts of the modern state of Georgia to the north, with its southern boundary abutting the northern tip of Mesopotamia.

To the Romans it was known as Armenia Maior and to the Greek-speaking peoples as Ἀρμενία Μεγάλη (Armenia Megale), to differentiate it with Lesser Armenia (Pok'r Hayk′, in Latin Armenia Minor).^[2] It would later be used to distinguish it from the medieval kingdom that was established in Cilicia, which was sometimes referred to as Little Armenia (not to be confused with Lesser Armenia).

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Maps of Greater Armenia

The Emirate of Armenia in the 9th century AD
Armenia as seen depicted in Ptolemy's Cosmographia.
Armenia, Mesopotamia, Babylonia and Assyria with Adjacent Regions, Karl von Spruner, published in 1865

References[]

^ Hewsen, Robert H. "The Geography of Armenia," in The Armenian People from Ancient to Modern Times, vol. 1: The Dynastic Periods: From Antiquity to the Fourteenth Century, ed. Richard G. Hovannisian. (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997), p. 15.
^ (in Armenian) Yeremyan, Suren. "Mets Hayk'." Armenian Soviet Encyclopedia. Yerevan: Armenian Academy of Sciences, 1981, vol. 7, pp. 434-36.

Greater Armenia

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