Armenia is subdivided into eleven administrative divisions. Of these, ten are provinces, known as marzer (մարզեր) or in the singular form marz (մարզ) in Armenian.
The Republic of Armenia declared its sovereignty on August 23, 1990, and became an independent state a year later, on September 23, 1991. In October 1991, Levon Ter-Petrosian, who had been elected democratically as chairman of the Armenian Supreme Soviet under the Soviet system in 1990, was chosen president of the republic in a six-candidate election.
Armenia is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Situated at the juncture of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia to the north, the de facto independent Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and Azerbaijan to the east, and Iran and the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan to the south.