The Republic of Artsakh, also known as the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR), was an ethnically-Armenian breakaway state in the South Caucasus, with Stepanakert serving as its capital. The Republic was founded on 2 September 1991 during the Dissolution of the Soviet Union; it succeeded the Nagorno-Karabakh autonomous oblast of the Azerbaijan SSR, and it broke away from Azerbaijan due to its ethnic Armenian majority voting in favor of secession in a 1991 referendum. This led to the Nagorno-Karabakh War between the Armenian-backed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and Azerbaijan from 1991 to 1994, when a ceasefire led to Nagorno-Karabakh achieving de facto independence. Artsakh became a presidential democracy with a unicameral legislature, but it was not recognized by any United Nations member-state; several United States states recognized Nagorno-Karabakh's independence, while Armenia's policy towards Nagorno-Karabakh was to treat it as part of Armenia. In February 2017, six months after the "Four-Day War" with Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh officially renamed itself to "Artsakh", an ancient name for the Nagorno-Karabakh region; this was seen as a nationalist move, as it meant an implicit claim on additional territory. In 2015, Artsakh had a population of 150,932 people.
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