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The population density is highest in the Ararat Plain, which serves as the centre of Armenia’s economy and culture. The river valleys in the southeast and northeast are the next most densely populated areas. Half the population is concentrated in the zone marked by an upper elevation limit of 3,300 feet, which makes up only about one-tenth of the entire territory. Many people also live in the foothills, at elevations of 3,300–4,900 feet, and in the mountains (4,900–6,600 feet). These regions account for a further third of the entire population. The high ranges and mountains are lightly populated; no one resides above 7,800 feet.
Fundamental changes in the distribution of Armenia’s population have been caused by the urbanization resulting from economic growth, particularly from the country’s industrialization. Before the Russian Revolution, Armenia’s four cities—Erevan (now Yerevan), Alexandropol (Gyumri), Kamo, and Goris—accounted for about one-tenth of the total population. Two-thirds of the population are now urbanized.
The high country to the north of Shirak and in the Zangezur region has small hamlets that lie in secluded glens, on riverbanks, and near springs; in the plain, such settlements cluster around mountain streams and irrigation canals, amid orchards and vineyards.
Demographic trends
The Russian campaigns against the Persians and the Turks in the 18th and 19th centuries resulted in large emigrations of Armenians under Muslim rule to the Transcaucasian provinces of the Russian Empire and to Russia itself. Armenians settled in Yerevan, Tʿbilisi, Karabakh, Shemakha (now Şamaxı), Astrakhan, and Bessarabia. At the time of the massacres in Turkish Armenia in 1915 (see Armenian Genocide), some Armenians found asylum in Russia.
A number settled in the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, within the neighbouring Muslim country of Azerbaijan. Armenians now constitute about three-fourths of the population of Nagorno-Karabakh; since 1988 there have been violent interethnic disputes and sporadic warfare between Armenians and Azerbaijanis in and around the enclave. After the conflict between the two ethnic groups escalated, most of Armenia’s Azerbaijani population fled or was expelled from the country.
Another wave of Armenians emigrated during the economic crisis of the 1990s. By the mid-1990s an estimated 750,000 Armenians—about one-fifth of the population—had left the country. According to most estimates, as a result of the 20th-century emigration waves, at least 5,000,000 Armenians now live abroad, with a plurality living in the states of the former Soviet Union and more than 1,000,000 living in the United States.
At present, Armenia’s birth rate is below the world’s average, and its death rate is higher than average. About one-fifth of the population is under age 15, and more than two-fifths is under age 30. Life expectancy, averaging 75 years of age, is about the global mean.
Economy
Under Soviet rule the Armenian economy was transformed from agricultural to primarily industrial; agriculture, however, remains important, accounting for about two-fifths of the gross domestic product and employing one-fifth of the labour force. Industry is heavily dependent on imports of energy and raw materials.
The massive earthquake of 1988 destroyed nearly one-third of Armenia’s industrial capacity, seriously weakening the economy. In 1989 the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh led Azerbaijan to impose a blockade, closing a vital natural gas pipeline to Armenia. The subsequent severe energy shortage—combined with the disruption of key trade routes due to civil unrest in Georgia—caused a sharp drop in industrial production, further devastating the economy. Most of the population of Armenia thus experienced severe economic hardship during the 1990s.
After independence, Armenia implemented a number of structural reforms in an effort to create the institutional and legal basis for a market economy. Reforms included substantial privatization of industry and agriculture, restructuring of the tax and financial systems, and price liberalization. A new currency, the dram, was introduced in 1993, replacing the ruble.
Agriculture
Agriculture in Armenia has to contend with many difficulties. Arable land is scarce; cultivated lands (plowland, orchards, and vineyards) occupy less than two-fifths of the total area. Pastures and meadows mowed for hay cover a larger area, approaching one-fourth of the territory. Farmlands in mountain regions form a mosaic of cornfields, orchards, vineyards, and pastures. Considerable tracts of arable land also are found in the Ararat Plain, the Shirak Steppe, and the southern part of the Sevan Basin.
The extensive irrigated lands in the low, sunny Ararat Plain and cultivated stretches in the northeastern and southern river valleys yield high-quality grapes and fruits. Storage lakes, dams, and pumping stations have been built and irrigation canals dug. More than half the total arable land area is irrigated. Farming, above an elevation of 3,300 feet, also combines with cattle raising; grain crops are cultivated and cattle are raised in the mountains, while tobacco and potatoes are raised in the lower, warmer part of the mountain belt. Farm products provide raw materials for many industries.
Viticulture is the leading branch of agriculture. Among the many orchard crops, peaches and apricots are the most common. Apples, cherries, mazzards (sweet cherries), and pears are cultivated in the colder climate, and walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds, pomegranates, and figs are also produced in this area. Vegetables are grown in the main agricultural regions, potatoes in the cooler mountains. Quality tobaccos are widely cultivated. Cotton and sugar beets, formerly grown in the Ararat Plain, are being succeeded by more valuable crops, such as grapes. The area under grain crops has been sharply reduced.
Extensive alpine pastures enhance the productivity of animal husbandry, whose main branches are the raising of beef and milk cattle and sheep. Pig and poultry raising, as well as sericulture and apiculture, play subsidiary roles.
Industry
Mechanical engineering, machine tools and electrical power machinery, electronics, and the chemical and mining industries hold a prominent place in Armenia’s heavy industry, but light and food industries are also fairly well advanced. Yerevan, Gyumri, and Vanadzor are machine-building cities. The centres of the chemical industries are Yerevan, Vanadzor, and Alaverdi.
Nonferrous metallurgy—in Alaverdi in the northern Highland and in Kapan and Kajaran along the southern Zangezur (Siuniq) mountains—includes the mining and dressing of copper, molybdenum, and other ores, the smelting of copper, and the extraction of precious and rare metals.
The food industry processes farm products, which meet domestic demand and are exported. The most advanced branches are involved in the primary processing of grapes and production of high-quality brandy, wines, canned fruits, and vegetables for export.
Light industry—a modern innovation—specializes in the production of woolen, silk, and cotton fabrics; knitted goods and clothes; carpets; and footwear.
Yerevan is the main industrial centre, accounting for nearly three-fifths of the total industrial output of Armenia. Other industrial centres and regions are developing, notably in the north, where Gyumri and Vanadzor are now major industrial centres.
Energy
At the initial stage of industrialization, the creation of a power base utilizing the hydraulic potential of mountain streams was of decisive importance. Production of electricity was combined with the building of irrigation works and water-supply systems for industries and cities. The Sevan-Hrazdan series of hydroelectric power stations was a first-priority project that used not only the waters of the Hrazdan but also those of Lake Sevan. This project made possible the electrification of agriculture and helped to build numerous industries. In the 1960s and ’70s emphasis shifted to thermal electric power stations burning fossil fuels and to nuclear energy. Armenia’s sole nuclear power station, near Yerevan, was shut down following the 1988 earthquake, but after Azerbaijan closed its gas pipeline to Armenia—causing a severe energy shortage—Armenia reopened the plant in 1995.
Transportation
The mountainous terrain is a serious impediment to the construction of land transport routes of any kind, although distances between towns and regions are not great. A railway line, leading to Tʿbilisi in the north and Baku in the east, runs through the northern, western, and southern regions of Armenia, but the rail link to Baku was closed in 1989. Yerevan is linked with the Sevan Basin by a line running along the Hrazdan River. Clustered along the rail routes are major industrial centres.
The network of roads is much denser, with Yerevan as the main hub. Road transport carries more freight than the railways; buses remain the chief mode of travel between towns and villages.
Air routes link Yerevan with Moscow and many Russian cities and with international cities including Athens, Paris, and Tehrān. Aircraft carry fresh fruits and grapes to Moscow, St. Petersburg, and elsewhere. Pipelines link Armenia with the Azerbaijani and Georgian gas fields, though the Azerbaijani pipeline was closed in 1989, and the Georgian pipeline has been subject to periodic disruption.
Trade
Armenia has a negative trade balance, importing more than it exports. It exports chemicals, nonferrous metals, machines, precision instruments, textiles and clothing, wine, brandy, and foodstuffs. Its major imports, in addition to coal and petroleum products, include ferrous metals, wood and paper products, grain, meat, milk, butter, and consumer goods. Armenia’s major import source and export destination is Russia; other trading partners include China, Georgia, Germany, and Iran.