Nagorno-Karabakh §

Mountainous Karabakh after autonomy

Nagorno-Karabakh means the mountainous Armenian-majority part of the wider Karabakh region. It is not identical with the old Karabakh khanate, the Soviet NKAO, the de facto Republic of Artsakh, or the post-2023 Azerbaijani administrative units, although each of those maps has claimed the name. The ambiguity matters because political arguments often slide between historical region, autonomous oblast and recognised state territory. editorial

In 1923 the Soviet state created the NKAO inside the Azerbaijan SSR, leaving the Armenian-majority mountain core with autonomy but without direct contiguity to Soviet Armenia. Armenians remained the majority through the Soviet period, and the 1988 demand for transfer to Armenia began from that demographic fact. Azerbaijani constitutional arguments began from a different fact: the oblast was legally inside Azerbaijan, and autonomy did not include a unilateral right to secede. Both claims had documentary basis, which is why the Soviet collapse produced war rather than an administratively soluble dispute. contested

The modern region experienced three decisive ruptures. The First Karabakh War created a de facto Armenian republic controlling the former NKAO and surrounding districts. The 2020 war reduced that space to a smaller Russian-peacekeeper-protected enclave. The 2022–23 blockade and September 2023 operation ended the Armenian presence as a functioning society, followed by the flight of more than 100,000 people registered by UNHCR UNHCR.

Nagorno-Karabakh is therefore the atlas's central example of a place whose legal status, demographic reality and lived security diverged until one of them was settled by force. Azerbaijan restored recognised territorial control in 2023. The Armenian community that had made the territory politically disputed is now displaced. Both facts must be held together. editorial