It encompassed Varanda, a district located in the southeastern part of Karabakh.
[1][2] The ruling meliks (princes) of the principality belonged to the Shahnazarian family, who not long before their rise to power lived in an area around Lake Sevan, from which they eventually fled.
[5] Varanda and the other melikdoms upheld the notion of Armenian statehood, which was used by the Safavids to fight the Ottoman Empire.
[9] Later, Melik Shahnazar II of Varanda showed the site of Shusha to his ally Panah Ali Khan, who expanded it into a proper fortress and capital for the Karabakh Khanate.
[9][10] This list is taken from Artak Maghalyan's The Melikdoms and Melik Houses of Artsakh in the 17th-19th Centuries.