Armenians in Bulgaria are the fifth largest minority, after Russians, in the country, numbering 6,552 according to the 2011 census, down from 10,832 in 2001, while Armenian organizations estimate up to 80,000. Armenians have lived in the Balkans since no later than the 5th century, when they moved there as part of the Byzantine cavalry. Since then, the Armenians have had a continuous presence in Bulgarian lands and have often played an important part in the history of Bulgaria from early Medieval times until the present.
Armenian Apostolic church in Burgas, Bulgaria
Armenian Apostolic church St. George in Plovdiv, Bulgaria
Armenians are an ethnic group and nation native to the Armenian highlands of West Asia. Armenians constitute the main population of the Republic of Armenia and constituted the main population of the breakaway Republic of Artsakh until the 2023 Azerbaijani offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh and the subsequent flight of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians. There is a wide-ranging diaspora of around five million people of full or partial Armenian ancestry living outside modern Armenia. The largest Armenian populations today exist in Russia, the United States, France, Georgia, Iran, Germany, Ukraine, Lebanon, Brazil, Argentina, Syria, and Turkey. The present-day Armenian diaspora was formed mainly as a result of the Armenian genocide with the exceptions of Iran, former Soviet states, and parts of the Levant.
Hayk, the legendary founder of the Armenian nation. Painting by Mkrtum Hovnatanian (1779–1846)
The Cathedral of Ani, completed in 1001
Ptolemy, Cosmographia (1467)
Persis, Parthia, Armenia. Rest Fenner, published in 1835.