Chiva is a village in the Sharur-Daralayaz uezd of the former Iravan governorate, later in the former Keshishkend (Yeghegnadzor) district, and currently in the Vayots Dzor province. The provincial centre lies 20 km to the west of the town of Keshishkend, on both the banks of the Yelpin River, which is the right branch of the Arpachay, at a height of 1,250 m above sea level. It was mentioned in “The Iravan Province Review Book”, on the five-verst map of the Caucasus.
The village was solely inhabited by Azerbaijanis: 29 in 1831, 294 in 1873, 431 in 1886, 689 in 1897, 562 in 1904, 612 in 1914, 758 in 1916 and 1,200 Azerbaijanis in 1919. In late 1919 the village was exposed to the aggression of the Armenian armed units, and its inhabitants, the Azerbaijanis, were deported. The surviving village residents managed to return to their ancestral land, after Soviet power had been established in the present-day Armenian territory. The village was inhabited by 391 Azerbaijanis in 1922, 367 Azerbaijanis, 94 Armenians in 1926, 367 Azerbaijanis, 221 Armenians in 1931. Armenians have settled there in a mass form since 1926. By decision of the USSR government, in 1948–1950 the inhabitants of the village were forced to move to Azerbaijan. Although after 1953 part of them had returned to the village, in November 1988 the Azerbaijanis, who were living there, were deported by the state of Armenia. At present, only Armenians live there.
The toponym was coined on the basis of the ethnonym “Chiva” which is a phonetic form of the name of the Turkic tribe “Yiva”. The “y~ç” parallels manifest themselves widely in the Turkic languages. The “y~ç” replacement in the words “yar” “char” used in the meaning of “a canyon”, “a high rock”, “a steep shore” is a bright example of it. At present, in the official documents in Armenian the name of the settlement is written as “Chiva”.
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 Vayots Dzor province.
Geographic coordinates: latitude: 39°46 E., longitude: 45°08′ E.
