Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the south by Turkey and Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of Georgia is Tbilisi. Georgia covers a territory of 69,700 km² and its population is almost 4.7 million. Georgia is a unitary, semi-presidential republic, with the government elected through a representative democracy.
During the classical era independent kingdoms became established in what is now Georgia. The kingdoms of Colchis and Iberia adopted Christianity in the early 4th century. A unified Georgia reached the peak of its political and economic strength during the reign of King David IV and Queen Tamar in the 11th–12th centuries. At the beginning of the 19th century, Georgia was annexed by the Russian Empire. After a brief period of independence following the Russian Revolution of 1917, Georgia was occupied by Soviet Russia in 1921, becoming the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic and part of the Soviet Union. After independence in 1991, post-communist Georgia suffered from civil unrest and economic crisis for most of the 1990s. This lasted until the Rose Revolution of 2003, after which the new government introduced democratic and economic reforms. Georgia is a member of the Council of Europe and the GUAM Organization for Democracy and Economic Development
The Georgians are one of the most ancient peoples in the world. In the third millennium BC there existed a single pre-Georgian language. The spoken languages Svanuri (in the second millennium BC) and Megruli (in the first millennium BC) were separated from the main language. The Georgian literary language was based on and developed from the Georgian language proper.
The favorable natural conditions, diversity of her rich nature and the location on the cross-road of different great civilizations in different epochs. The routes connecting the East and the West, the South and the North functioned with various intensity at different stages of history. The geopolitical location was favorable for the contacts with other civilized countries on the one hand, but on the other brought country into the sphere of interests of great Empires.
North Caucasian nomadic peoples also created great difficulties for Georgia, ravaging the country and settling on its territory during centuries.