Kharaba Kotanli was a village in the territory of the Iravan uezd of the former Iravan governorate, later in the former Vedi (Ararat) district, and present-day Ararat province. It was located near the village of Boyuk Gilanlar and at a foot of Allahuakbar Mountain. The name of the village was marked on the five- verst map of the Caucasus.

The village was inhabited by 64 Azerbaijanis in 1873, 105 in 1886, 253 in 1897, 174 in 1904, 219 in 1914 and 207 Azerbaijanis in 1916. The Azerbaijanis were massacred or ousted from the village by the Armenian-Dashnak armed units in 1918–1919 and Kurds were settled in the village. In accordance with the decision of the USSR Council of Ministers “On the resettlement of collective farmers and other Azerbaijani population from Armenian SSR to the Kur-Araz lowlands of the Azerbaijan SSR” dated 23 December 1947, the village inhabitants were deported to Azerbaijan. The village has been in ruins since 1949.

The toponym was coined on the basis of the words “kharaba” meaning “destroyed, demolished, ruined” and the Turkic ethnonym “Kotan” with the posessive ending “-li”.