Land

Armenia is a hilly nation with a wide range of landscapes and geologic instability. Above sea level, the average land is 5,900 feet (1,800 meters). There are no lowlands: half of the country is between 3,300 and 6,600 feet in height, with just approximately a tenth below that.

Mount Aragats (Alaghez), Armenia's highest peak (13,418 feet, or 4,090 meters), is a mix of tall mountain ranges, deep river basins, and lava plateaus scattered with extinct volcanoes in the northwestern region of the Armenian Highland. The Somkhet, Bazum, Pambak, Gugark, Areguni, Shakhdag, and Vardenis ranges of the Lesser Caucasus go across Armenia's northern sector to the north and east.

The Sevan Basin, which contains Lake Sevan (525 square miles) and is surrounded in by hills towering as high as 11,800 feet, is located in the eastern portion of Armenia at a height of roughly 6,200 feet. The Ararat Plain sits at the foot of Mount Aragats and the Geghama Range in the southwest; the Aras River divides this major plain into two halves, with the northern half in Armenia and the southern half in Turkey and Iran.

Armenia is prone to earthquakes that cause significant damage. An earthquake struck Armenia's second largest city, Leninakan (now Gyumri), on December 7, 1988, destroying the town of Spitak in the northwest and severely damaging Leninakan (now Gyumri). It is estimated that 25,000 people were murdered.