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Georgia (i/ˈdʒɔrdʒə/; Georgian: საქართველო, sak’art’velo IPA: [sɑkʰɑrtʰvɛlɔ] ( listen)) is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe — Georgia may be considered to be in Asia and/or Europe; the UN classification of world regions[7] places Georgia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook[8], National Geographic[9], and Encyclopædia Britannica[10] also place Georgia in Asia; conversely, numerous sources place Georgia in Europe, such as the European Union[11], the Council of Europe[12], U.S. Department of State[13][14], British Foreign and Commonwealth Office[15], World Health Organization[16], BBC[17], Oxford Reference Online[18], Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary[19], World Atlas[20] USEUCOM[21], and The European Library[22] — it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. Georgia covers a territory of 69,700 km² and its population is almost 4.7 million. Georgia's constitution is that of a representative democracy, organized as a unitary, semi-presidential republic. It is a member of the United Nations, the Council of Europe, the World Trade Organization, the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Community of Democratic Choice, the GUAM Organization for Democracy and Economic Development, and the Asian Development Bank. The country aspires to join the North-Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union.
The history of Georgia can be traced back to the ancient kingdoms of Colchis and Iberia. It was one of the first countries to adopt Christianity, in the early 4th century. 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.[23] After a brief period of independence following the Russian Revolution of 1917, Georgia was annexed by Soviet Russia in 1921 and from 1922 to 1991 the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR) was one of the fifteen federal republics of the Soviet Union. Like many post-communist countries, Georgia suffered from civil unrest and economic crisis for most of the 1990s through the Rose Revolution of 2003, after which the new government introduced democratic and economic reforms.[24]
Georgia contains two de facto independent regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which gained limited international recognition after the 2008 South Ossetia war between Georgia and Russia. Georgia still considers the regions to be part of its sovereign territory.
