ERIVAN, a city of Persia, in Asia, and capital of Persian Armenia. It is a large, dirty, ill-looking place, in which are no handsome buildings, the houses being very mean, and raised with earth or mud; but it is full of gardens and vineyards. It is situated in a plain which is surrounded on all sides with mountains. Two rivers pass near it, the Zengoi to the north-west, and the Queur Boulac to the south-west. The fortress may pass for a town of itself; it is of an oval form, and is four miles in circumference, containing about 800 houses. It is inhabited by none but the native Persians. The Armenians have shops in it, where they work and trade in the day time, but at night return to their habitations in the city. The fortress is surrounded with three walls, made with bricks dried in the sun, which have battlements, and are flanked with towers, and defended with ramparts. On the north-east there is a dreadful precipice, above 200 yards in depth, at the bottom of which the river runs. The garrison usually consisted of 2000 men; but how many there are since the revolution is hard to say. The palace of the governor of the province is within the fortress. The city
Erivan
Ermin.
is about a cannon's shot distant from the fortress, and the space between is full of houses and markets. E. Long. 44. 50. N. Lat. 40. 20.