Spitak

Armenia, Armenia

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Spitak is a town and urban municipality in northern Lori Province of Armenia, located about 96 km north of Yerevan and 22 km west of Vanadzor on the Pambak River, surrounded by the Bazum Mountains to the north and Pambak Mountains to the south at around 1,650 meters above sea level.

The town is best known as the epicenter of the devastating 1988 Armenian earthquake of December 7, when a magnitude 6.8 quake destroyed much of Spitak, Leninakan (now Gyumri), Kirovakan (now Vanadzor), and hundreds of villages, killing over 25,000 people, injuring up to 130,000, and leaving more than half a million homeless.

The original town was largely wiped out, and the rebuilt settlement was laid out slightly east of its former location, with large parts of the old, collapsed quarters still visible as reminders of the disaster, while new infrastructure, modern buildings, and community facilities have been constructed over the following decades.

Today, Spitak has around 13,000 residents, mostly ethnic Armenians belonging to the Armenian Apostolic Church, and it serves as an important regional center on the road between Gyumri and Vanadzor, with cold winters, mild summers, and an annual precipitation of about 440 mm. The town also carries cultural memory of the earthquake through monuments, memorials, and representations in film and media, and it remains a symbol of both tragedy and resilience in modern Armenian history.