republic · Caucasus

Azerbaijan

1991 CE – present · capital Baku

The independent Republic of Azerbaijan on the Caspian Sea, an oil and gas producer whose post-Soviet history has been dominated by the Karabakh conflict.

Origins

The Azerbaijan SSR declared independence on 30 August 1991, confirmed by a constitutional act on 18 October 1991, and became fully sovereign with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December. It claimed descent from the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic of 1918-1920, whose flag it readopted, while war with Armenian forces over Nagorno-Karabakh was already under way.

Rule and society

After defeat in the First Karabakh War and a 1994 ceasefire that left Armenian forces holding Karabakh and surrounding districts, Heydar Aliyev, president from 1993, built a strong presidential system, passed to his son Ilham Aliyev in 2003. The 1994 Contract of the Century and the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, opened in 2005, brought oil wealth and Western investment. The state is secular, with a Shia majority.

To the present

In the 2020 war Azerbaijan regained much of the lost territory, and a 2023 offensive brought all of Karabakh under its control, prompting the flight of its Armenian population. Peace talks with Armenia continue.

Lineage

Azerbaijan SSR 1920 CE – 1991 CESoviet Union 1922 CE – 1991 CEAzerbaijan

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Cite this page
APA
The Epoch Institute. (2026). Azerbaijan. In The Epoch Institute States Register. https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/azerbaijan
MLA
“Azerbaijan.” The Epoch Institute States Register, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/azerbaijan. Accessed .
Chicago
The Epoch Institute. “Azerbaijan.” The Epoch Institute States Register. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/azerbaijan.
Harvard
The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Azerbaijan’, The Epoch Institute States Register. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/azerbaijan (Accessed: ).

Last reviewed October 2026Random state ↻