Ashnak is a village in the Echmiadzin uezd of the former Iravan governorate, later in the former Talin district, and currently in the Aragatsotn province. The provincial centre lies 50 km to the northwest of the town of Ashtarak, in the southwest of Alagoz Mountain, and at a height of 1,420 m above sea level. It was marked in “The Iravan Province Review Book”, on the five-verst map of the Caucasus. The name of the village is also indicated as “Eshnak”.

The village was first referred to in the 5th century. The remnants of the 4th-5th-century Alban church, the ruins of the fortress built in the 9th-10th centuries still remain there. The ancient Ashnak village was located 5 km to the west of the present Ashnak village. The village was solely inhabited by Azerbaijanis: 62 in 1831, 363 in 1873, 469 in 1886, 744 in 1897, 477 in 1904, 507 in 1914 and 806 Azerbaijanis in 1916. In 1918 the village was exposed to Armenian aggression and its inhabitants, the Azerbaijanis, were massacred or deported from their historical land. The Armenians removed from the villages of the Sasun province of Türkiye were settled in the village in 1915–1920. The surviving Azerbaijanis, who had fled the village, managed to return to their ancestral land following the establishment of Soviet power in the present-day Armenian territory. Along with the Armenians, the village was inhabited by 22 Azerbaijanis in 1922. They were ousted from the village in 1924–1925. However, the historical facts are distorted in the Armenian authors’ works. “The Dictionary of the Toponyms of Armenia and Neighbouring Provinces” states that 62 Armenians lived in the Ashnak village in 1831 and 363 Armenians in 1873 respectively, while actually in those years not Armenians, but only Azerbaijanis lived in the village. At present, Armenians live in the village.

The toponym was coined by adding the suffix “-k” denoting plurality to the Turkic ethnonym “Ashina/Ashna”, implies “a village where the Ashina tribe lives”.

According to the law “On the administrative-territorial division of the Republic of Armenia” dated 7 November 1995, it was integrated into the administrative area of the Aragatsotn province.

Geographic coordinates: latitude: 40°19′ N., longitude: 43°55′ E.