The Armenian diaspora (Armenian: Հայկական Սփյուռք) is the collective entity that comprises those Armenians who were or have been dispersed from their indigenous homeland of Eastern Anatolia and the southern Caucasus mountains to far-flung regions across the globe, including to six continents. The Armenian diaspora has existed for much of the history of Armenians, often the result of persecution, and less often the result of the pursuit of economic opportunity. The modern Armenian diaspora was formed largely after the First World War as a result of the Armenian Genocide, which was the centrally-planned extermination of the indigenous Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during the First World War. Those Armenians who survived and fled to different parts of the world (approximately half a million in number) created new Armenian communities far from their native land. Through marriage and procreation, the number of Armenians in the diaspora who trace their lineage to those Armenians who survived and fled the Armenian Genocide is now several million. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, approximately one million Armenians from Armenia have joined the Armenian diaspora largely as a result of difficult economic conditions in Armenia.
Today, the Armenian diaspora refers to communities of Armenians living outside the Republic of Armenia, the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, and the Javakhk region of Georgia, since these regions form part of Armenians’ indigenous homeland. The total Armenian population living worldwide is estimated to be 11,000,000. Of those, approximately 3,300,000 live in Armenia, 140,000 in the unrecognized majority-Armenian Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh (formerly an autonomous republic within Soviet Azerbaijan) and 120,000 in the majority-Armenian region of Javakhk in neighboring Georgia. This leaves approximately 7,000,000 to 8,000,000 as the population of the Armenian diaspora (with the largest populations in Russia, the United States, France, Argentina, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Canada, Ukraine, Greece, and Australia). (See chart of population breakdown by country). Only one-third of the world’s Armenian population lives in Armenia, and their pre-World War I homeland until the 1920s once covered six times that of present-day Armenia, including the eastern regions of Turkey, northern part of Iran, southern part of Georgia, Nagorno-Karabakh and Nakhijevan regions of Azerbaijan.
