Gafan is a town in the Zangezur uezd of the former Yelizavetpol (Ganja) governorate, in the Syunik province. It is located on the banks of the Okhchu River, at a distance of 320 km from the city of Iravan, at a height of 910 m above sea level. Following the establishment of the Zangezur uezd in Soviet Armenia on 31 August 1921, the settlement was integrated into the administrative area of Armenia. The district of Gafan was established on 9 September 1930. It has been a town subordinated to the republic since 1938. It has been called “the district of Gafan” since 1990. It is currently the centre of the Syunik province.

Since the Middle Ages, copper-molybdenum mines have been discovered in Gafan and copper production has expanded. In the middle of the 19th century, the French built in Gafan a copper plant equipped with advanced machines. Melted copper was sold to many European countries.

The city was inhabited by 132 Azerbaijanis and 388 Armenians in 1873, and 270 Azerbaijanis and 785 Armenians in 1886. In 1918–1920 Armenian armed groups committed massacres there, and the surviving Azerbaijanis left the village. It was inhabited by 70 Azerbaijanis and 1,047 Armenians in 1922, and 101 Azerbaijanis and 2,895 Armenians in 1931. To grant Gafan the status of a town subordinated to the republic, four surrounding Armenian villages, as well as the Azerbaijani villages of Shaharjik and Achagu were merged to Gafan, consequently, the Azerbaijani population of the town numbered about 5,000 people. “On the resettlement of collective farmers and other Azerbaijani population from the Armenian SSR to the Kur-Araz lowland of the Azerbaijan SSR” dated 23 December 1947, three families (12 people) were forcibly deported to Azerbaijan from Gafan in 1948.

The name of the town is associated with the name of the Gafan village located on the right bank of the Okhchu River, 10 km to the northwest of the present-day town of Gafan. In their works Armenian authors referred to it as “Ghapan”.

The toponym originated from the ethnonym “Kapan” attributed to the Turkic Pecheneg tribe.

According to the law “On the administrative-territorial division of the Republic of Armenia” dated 7 November 1995, it was approved as the administrative centre of the Syunik province.

Geographical coordinates: latitude: 39°12’ N., longitude: 46°24’ E.