Georgia

The territory of modern Georgia has been inhabited since deep prehistory, with hominin remains found at Dmanisi dating to roughly 1.8 million years ago, among the earliest evidence of human ancestors outside Africa. By the late Bronze and early Iron Ages, the region supported distinct cultures whose metallurgy and viticulture are well attested archaeologically. Classical sources describe two principal kingdoms in the area: Colchis on the Black Sea coast, the legendary destination of Jason and the Argonauts, and Iberia in the eastern interior. Greek colonies, Achaemenid Persian influence, and later Roman pressure shaped the region from antiquity, and in the early fourth century the Iberian king Mirian III adopted Christianity, traditionally dated to about 337, making the Georgian church one of the oldest in the Christian world.

Through the medieval centuries Georgia was contested between Byzantine, Sasanian, Arab, Seljuk, and later Mongol and Ottoman powers. A unified Georgian kingdom emerged under the Bagrationi dynasty, reaching its greatest extent and cultural flowering during the reigns of David IV the Builder (1089 to 1125) and Queen Tamar (1184 to 1213), a period that produced Shota Rustaveli's epic poem and a flourishing tradition of fresco painting and architecture. Mongol invasions in the thirteenth century and the campaigns of Timur in the fourteenth fragmented the realm, and by the late fifteenth century Georgia had splintered into rival kingdoms and principalities pressed between Safavid Iran and the Ottoman Empire. In 1783 the eastern kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti accepted Russian protection under the Treaty of Georgievsk, and in 1801 the Russian Empire annexed the kingdom outright, absorbing the remaining Georgian polities over the following decades.

Following the collapse of the Russian Empire, the Democratic Republic of Georgia declared independence on 26 May 1918 and adopted a parliamentary constitution under a Social Democratic government. Soviet Russia invaded in February 1921, and Georgia was incorporated first into the Transcaucasian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and then, from 1936, as the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic within the USSR. The Soviet decades brought industrialisation, mass literacy, political repression under Joseph Stalin (himself a Georgian, born in Gori), and, in April 1989, a violent crackdown on demonstrators in Tbilisi that accelerated the independence movement.

Georgia restored its independence on 9 April 1991. The early post-Soviet years were turbulent: the presidency of Zviad Gamsakhurdia ended in a 1991 to 1992 coup, separatist wars in South Ossetia and Abkhazia in the early 1990s left those regions outside central control, and Eduard Shevardnadze led the country until the peaceful Rose Revolution of November 2003 brought Mikheil Saakashvili to power on a reformist platform. A brief war with Russia in August 2008 over South Ossetia ended with Russian recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states, a position that most of the international community rejects. Constitutional changes in 2010 shifted Georgia toward a parliamentary system, and in 2012 the Georgian Dream coalition won power in the country's first peaceful transfer of government through elections.

Georgia is a unitary parliamentary republic, with executive authority vested in a prime minister and cabinet accountable to a unicameral parliament, and a largely ceremonial president as head of state. The country has formally pursued European Union and NATO integration and was granted EU candidate status in December 2023.