Area: 29,800 sq km (11,500 sq miles).
Geography: A landlocked, mountainous country in the southern Caucasus, between Europe and Asia, bordered by Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkey, and Georgia.
Population: 3.6 million. Between 400,000 and one million Armenians have emigrated in recent years due to the economic crisis, most to Russia. At least four million Armenians live abroad, many of whom emigrated during the massacre of Armenians in 1915 by the Ottoman Empire.
Capital: Yerevan (1.2 million).
People: Armenian (93 per cent), Azeri (2.6 per cent), Russian (2.3 per cent), Kurds (1.7).
Religion: Armenian Orthodox Church (vast majority).
President: Robert Kocharian.
Prime Minister: Vazgen Sarksyan (until yesterday). National identity: As a nation, the Armenians date back to at least the 12th century BC, and a powerful Armenian state existed in the 9th to 6th centuries BC. In Anabasis, Xenophon described how the Armenians turned back 10,000 Greek mercenaries in 400 BC.
In 301 AD, Armenia became the first country to adopt Christianity as the state religion. St Gregory's monastery at Echmiadzin remains the seat of the patriarchs and an important cultural centre.
As the Ottoman Empire began to wane, Armenians identified with neighbouring Russians. In the 1915 genocide, at least two million Armenians were massacred by the Turks.
Armenian independence from the Ottoman Empire was recognised in 1918. Bolshevik troops from Russia invaded to keep the Ottomans out. Armenia became a Soviet Republic in 1920 and an integral part of the Soviet Union in 1936.
Recent history: In 1988, the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh voted to rejoin Armenia, but Soviet troops suppressed the street demonstrations that followed.
Economic activity was badly disrupted by a major earthquake in 1988 and by the conflict with Azerbaijan.
Armenia became an independent republic following the Soviet collapse in 1991 but has endured years of political turmoil.
Present turmoil: Sarksyan (40), a former athletic instructor and Soviet propaganda official, led a nationalist group representing war veterans who fought in the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh.
The post-independence president, Levon Ter-Petrosian, was re-elected in 1996 but Sarksyan's political movement forced his resignation in February 1998, accusing him of pursuing defeatist policies on the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh.
He was replaced by Robert Kocharian, a native of Nagorno-Kocharian and technically a citizen of Azerbaijan. Sarksyan became Prime Minister last June. An ally of Armenia's Soviet-era leader, Karen Demirchian, now speaker of the parliament, together they co-chaired the hard-line Unity party. The party was closely tied to a militia group, the Yerkrapah Battalion.