The Armenian presence within the geographical area of the Ottoman Empire is a very ancient one. In reality the area that eventually became the Ottoman Empire contained the lands of sequential Armenian royal dynasties, from antiquity to the Middle Ages. These regions are mostly included in present-day Turkey’s eastern provinces – and today’s Republic of Armenia – where a dense population of Armenians lived. For this reason the Ottoman government, for a long time, in its turn gave these areas the unofficial name of Ermenistan, used until at least the 18th century. These regions contain the following Ottoman provinces (according to 19th century data): Erzurum, Van, Bitlis, Diyarbekir, Mamouret-el-Aziz (or Harput) and Sivas. This whole geographical area is also known as the Armenian Highlands.
This doesn’t mean that the Armenians only stayed in the provinces quoted above. Wars and the imperial policy of settlement were the reasons that Armenians would leave their homeland and settle en masse in bordering regions. (...)
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