In the early 4th century AD, Tiridates converted to Christianity even before Constantine of the Byzantine Empire, establishing the first official Christian state religion. The Byzantine Empire and Persian Empire divided up Armenia until the early 7th century AD when the Byzantine Empire took complete control for a little while, eventually giving it up to the Arabs who had recently conquered Persia. With near autonomy, Armenia was ruled by a noble family put in power by the Arabs until small Armenian kingdoms became sovere

Armenia lacks many resources that would enable it to become a strong nation, but if they can keep strong relations with oil producing nations and continue to privatize industry the economy should become stable and continue to grow without too many setbacks.

Although independence was declared in 1991, the Armenian constitution was adopted in 1995 by a nationwide referendum that guarantees basic human rights and freedoms. The constitution sets up a president who is the head of the state with broad executive powers. The president is directly elected for a term of five years and cannot serve more than two consecutive terms. The prime minister is appointed by the president and sees over the council of ministers. The council of ministers is like a cabinet and is appointed by the president with recommendations from the prime minister. The legislative branch is a unicameral body called the National Assembly that is made up of 131 members who serve four-year terms. The Council of Justice nominates justices for the Court of Appeals, the highest appellate court in Armenia. The president then appoints the justices. There is also a Constitutional Court that keeps legislative and presidential decisions constitutional. The Constitutional Court is made up of nine members, four appointed by the National Assembly and five by the president.

In 1993 Armenia set up its own currency called the dram. The dram is printed exclusively by the Central Bank of Armenia. The Central Bank of Armenia is a separate entity from the government, but acts much like the Federal Reserve does in the United States by being the fiscal agent of the government and undertaking monetary policy to ensure the economic stability of the nation. The dram is at an exchange rate with the U.S. dollar of 559 drams to one dollar.

Armenia has faced many problems due to the large number of ethnic-Armenians living in the Nagorno-Karabakh region. This region is part of Azerbaijan, but southeastern Armenia completely separates the area from Azerbaijan. Ongoing conflict has lead to many casualties and closed borders. Other secular Muslim nations such as Turkey also closed borders with predominately Christian Armenia.

Armenia declared its independence

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