Where in the World is Georgia

Part of the Caucasus Region of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, the Republic of Georgia covers 26,807 square miles of largely mountainous terrain, sharing its 906-mile border with the Black Sea to the west, Russia to the north and northeast, Turkey to the southwest, Armenia to the south and Azerbaijan to the southeast. Known as the first and earliest winemaking region in the world—dating back to 6000 B.C., Georgia touts a population of 3.7 million people—with nearly 1/3 of her population living in or around her largest city and nation’s capital, Tbilisi.

53 Rayons

Divided into 53 rayons or post-Soviet administrative districts, nine cities and two autonomous republics, Georgia has two principle ports on the tideless, nearly landlocked Black Sea, Pot’i and Batumi. Although smaller than the American state of South Carolina, Georgia is known for its extremely diverse terrain, encompassing both high mountain ranges in the Greater and Lesser Caucasus Mountains, to the western Kolkhida Lowlands of the Black Sea, while the eastern region bordering Russia consists of the plains of the Kura River Basin. Known for its humid, warm and pleasant climate on the Black Sea coast, averaging 72 degrees Fahrenheit in summer to the year-round frozen, snow covered terrain of Georgia’s Shkhara Mountain, which boasts the nation’s highest peak at 17,070 feet above sea level.

Mixed Ethnicity

Georgia’s wettest areas include the Black Sea coast, inland through the Kolkhida Lowlands, with average rainfall amounts between 40 to 80 inches a year. From a mixed ethnicity standpoint, while the majority of the nation’s population are Georgian—almost 87%—the remaining 13% are made up of Russians, Azerbaijanis, Armenians, Ossetians, Ukrainians and Greeks, and while Georgian is the official language of the country, of the 14 languages spoken in Georgia, the most widely-used and understood include English, Russian, Assyrian and Urum. Like many post-Soviet countries, Georgia fell on hard times after the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991, further hampered by lingering tax evasion and separatist disputes in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, yet by the mid-2000s, economic and democratic reforms brought about by the peaceful Rose Revolution saw the country’s economy improve with double digit growth, prompting the World Bank to name Georgia the world’s number one economic reformer by 2007, making the Republic of Georgia, a small yet vibrant nation in far eastern Europe.