User:Kentronhayastan/Karabakh

Demographics
The demographics of the Karabakh region has been a subject of great controversy and debate, particularly between Armenian and Azerbaijani circles.

According to the Azerbaijanis, the majority of the population of Karabakh was settled after the 1828 annexation of the region by the Russian Empire. Armenians, on the other hand, claim that the region, particularly Zangezur and the Highlands (which they call by various names such as Artsakh, Khachen, and Khamsa), has been populated by Armenians long before that date.

Several primary sources from the 18th, including many be the ancestors of modern Azerbaijanis, century refer to the region as Armenian or as part of geographic Armenia. After 1988, the onset of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, all of the publications of the primary sources that are currently held in Azerbaijani archives, meant to be used by academics, have had their references to Armenia and Armenians either completely removed or replaced with Albania and Albanians.

According to the 1823 Russian survey of the region which was conducted for taxation purposes, the majority of the settled population and the highest taxpayers was Armenian. Most of the names of the people listed for professions were also Armenian. The majority of the population of Karabakh as a whole was Muslim, though the number of settled Muslim population was negligible, most of them being nomadic or semi-nomadic peoples, and most of them residing in the lowlands of Karabakh. Additionally, Muslim, as a generic term included Azerbaijanis (referred to as Tatars in the survey) as well as Kurds.