

Nagorno-Karabakh became de facto independent with the end of the First Nagorno-Karabakh War in 1994. The region and seven surrounding districts are internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, while negotiations on the resolution of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict are facilitated by the OSCE. In September 1991, the ethnic Armenian majority of the Nagorno-Karabakh region formed self-proclaimed Republic of Artsakh. The modern Republic of Azerbaijan proclaimed its independence on 30 August 1991, shortly before the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the same year. In 1922, the country was incorporated into the Soviet Union as part of the Transcaucasian SFSR. The Azerbaijan Democratic Republic proclaimed its independence from the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic in 1918 and became the first secular democratic Muslim-majority state, taking its name from the adjacent region of northwestern Iran for political reasons.

It is a part of the South Caucasus region, and is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia ( Republic of Dagestan) to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia and Turkey to the west, and Iran to the south. Azerbaijan ( UK: / ˌ æ z ər b aɪ ˈ dʒ ɑː n, - ˈ dʒ æ n/ ( listen), US: / ˌ ɑː z ər b aɪ ˈ dʒ ɑː n, ˌ æ z-/ Azerbaijani: Azərbaycan ), officially the Azerbaijan Republic or the Republic of Azerbaijan, is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia.
