Azerbaijan a Country Study

The Soviet Union created the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region within Azerbaijan in 1924, when over 94 percent of the region’s population was Armenian (see fig. 3). (The term Nagorno-Karabakh originates from the Russian for mountainous Karabakh. ) As the Azerbaijani population grew, the Karabakh Armenians chafed under discriminatory rule, and by 1960 hostilities had begun between the two populations of the region.