Iranian Armenians

Iranian Armenians (Armenian: իրանահայեր, romanized: iranahayer; Persian: ایرانی های ارمنی), also known as Persian Armenians (Armenian: պարսկահայեր, romanized: parskahayer; Persian: ارامنه فارس), are Armenians living in Iran who invariably speak Armenian as their first language. Estimates of their number in Iran range from 70,000 to 500,000. Areas with a high concentration of them include Tabriz, Tehran, Salmas and New Julfa, Isfahan.

Armenians have lived for millennia in the territory that forms modern-day Iran. Many of the oldest Armenian churches, monasteries, and chapels are in Iran. Iranian Armenia (1502–1828), which includes what is now the Armenian Republic, was part of Qajar Iran up to 1828. Iran had one of the largest populations of Armenians in the world, alongside the neighbouring Ottoman Empire until the beginning of the 20th century.

Armenians were influential and active in modernizing Iran during the 19th and 20th centuries. After the Iranian Revolution, many Armenians emigrated to Armenian diasporic communities in North America and Western Europe. A large number, an estimated 80,000, repatriated to Armenia after the breakup of the Soviet Union with repatriation numbers peaking in the early 2000s. Today, the Armenians are Iran's largest Christian religious minority.

Since Antiquity, there has always been much interaction between ancient Armenia and Persia. The Armenian people are among the native ethnic groups of northwestern Iran, having millennia-long recorded history there. The region (or parts of it) has made up part of historical Armenia numerous times in history. These historical Armenian regions that nowadays include Iranian Azerbaijan are Nor Shirakan, Vaspurakan, and Paytakaran. Many of the world's oldest Armenian chapels, monasteries and churches are located within this region of Iran.

On the Behistun Inscription of 515 BC, Darius the Great indirectly confirmed that Urartu and Armenia are synonymous when describing their conquests. Armenia became a satrapy of the Achaemenid for a long time, and relations between Armenians and Persians were cordial.

The cultural links between the Armenians and the Persians can be traced back to Zoroastrian times. Before the 3rd century, no other neighbor had as much influence on Armenian life and culture as Parthia. They shared many religious and cultural characteristics, and intermarriage among the Parthian and Armenian nobility was common. For twelve more centuries, Armenia was under the direct or indirect rule of the Persians.

In the 11th century, the Seljuks drove thousands of Armenians into Iran, where some were sold as slaves and others worked as artisans and merchants. After the Mongol invasion of Persia and Mesopotamia in the 13th century, many Armenian merchants and artists settled in Iran, in cities that were once part of historic Armenia such as Khoy, Salmas, Maku, Maragheh, Urmia, and especially Tabriz.

Although Armenians have a long history of interaction and settlement with Persia/Iran and within the modern-day borders of the nation, Iran's Armenian community emerged under the Safavids. In the 16th century, the Ottoman Empire and Safavid Iran divided Armenia. From the early 16th century, both Western Armenia and Eastern Armenia fell under Iranian Safavid rule. Owing to the century-long Turco-Iranian geo-political rivalry that would last in Western Asia, significant parts of the region were frequently fought over between the two rival empires. From the mid-16th century with the Peace of Amasya, and decisively from the first half of the 17th century with the Treaty of Zuhab until the first half of the 19th century, Eastern Armenia was ruled by the successive Iranian Safavid, Afsharid and Qajar empires, while Western Armenia remained under Ottoman rule. From 1604 Abbas I of Iran implemented a scorched earth policy in the region to protect his north-western frontier against any invading Ottoman forces, a policy which involved a forced resettlement of masses of Armenians outside of their homelands.