Erivan Khanate
The Erivan Khanate (Armenian: Երևանի խանություն —Yerevani khanut'yun; Persian: خانات ایروان — Khānāt-e Īravān; Azerbaijani: İrəvan xanlığı — ایروان خانلیغی) also known as Čoḵūr Saʿd, was a khanate that was established in Safavid Persia in the eighteenth century. It covered an area of roughly 19,500 km2, and corresponded to most of present-day central Armenia, most of the Iğdır Province and of Kağızman district of the Kars Province of present-day Turkey, and the Sharur and Sadarak districts of the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic of present-day Azerbaijan.
As a result of the Persian defeat in the last Russo-Persian War, it was occupied by Russian troops in 1827 and then ceded to the Russian Empire in 1828 in accordance with the Treaty of Turkmenchay. Immediately following this, the territories of the former Erivan Khanate and the Nakhichevan Khanate were joined to form the "Armenian Oblast" of the Russian Empire.
Government
During Persian rule, the Shahs appointed the various khans as beglerbegī to preside over their domains, thus creating an administrative center. These khans from the Qajar tribe, of Turkic origin, also known as the sirdar (Pers. sardār, “chief”), governed the entire khanate, from the mid-seventeenth century until the Russian occupation in 1828. The khanate was divided into fifteen administrative districts called maḥals with Persian as its official language.
