Utik

Utik (Armenian: Ուտիք, also known as Uti, Utiq, or Outi, or Otene in Greek sources) was a historic province of the Kingdom of Armenia and a region of Caucasian Albania after the splitting of Armenia in 387 AD by Sassanid Persia. Most of the region is located within present-day Azerbaijan immediately west of the Kura River while a part of it lies within the Tavush province of present-day northeastern Armenia.

History

According to Strabo, in the 2nd century BC, Armenians conquered from the Medes the lands of Siwnik and Caspiane, and the lands that lay between them, including Utik, that was populated by the people called Utis, after whom it received its name. Modern historians agree that "Utis" were a people of non-Armenian origin, and the modern ethnic group of Udi is their descendants. After the Armenian conquest in the 2nd century BC Utik also had some Armenian population.

According to the Armenian geographer Anania Shirakatsi's Ashkharatsuyts ("Geography", 7th century), Utik was the 12th among the 15 provinces of the Kingdom of Armenia, and belonged, at the time, to the Caucasian Albania (when the Utik and Artsakh provinces were lost by Armenia after its partition in the 4th century). According to Ashkharatsuyts, Utik consisted of 8 cantons (gavars, in Armenian): Aranrot, Tri, Rotparsyan, Aghve, Tuskstak (Tavush), Gardman, Shakashen, and Uti. The province was bounded by the Kura River from north-east, river Arax from south-east, and by the province of Artsakh from the west.