:''For the horse, see
Karabakh horse.''
:''For the region, see
Nagorno-Karabakh.''
'Karabakh' (, ) is a region in
Azerbaijan, extending from the highlands of the
Lesser Caucasus down to lowlands between the two rivers of
Kura and
Aras. The highland part of the region became known as
Nagorno-Karabakh after the establishment of the
Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast in
1923, and declared independence in
1991, but remains unrecognized worldwide. Portions of lowland Karabakh have been occupied by Armenian forces since the
Nagorno-Karabakh War ended in
1993[US State Department - 1993 UN Security Council Resolutions on Nagorno-Karabakh].
The word "Karabakh" originated from
Turkic and
Persian, literally meaning "black garden", respectively.
[BBC News — Regions and territories: Nagorno-Karabakh] The name first appears in
Georgian and Persian sources in the 13th and 14th centuries.
[1]
The related term ''Karabagh'' [kærəba:] is described by the
Oxford English Dictionary as being used to denote a kind of patterned
rug originally produced in the area, and is an acceptable alternate spelling of Karabakh.
References
1. Soviet Armenian Encyclopedia, two historic regions of Armenia and Caucasian Albania.[Great Soviet Encyclopedia, "NKAO, Historial Survey", 3rd edition, translated into English, New York: Macmillan Inc., 1973]