49 Fun Facts About Georgia (Country)

What is the capital and largest city of Georgia?

Tbilisi took over from nearby Mtskheta as the royal capital some 1,500 years ago and has been sacked and rebuilt by a long line of invaders since, among them Arabs, Mongols and Timur.

Georgia lies on the east coast of which sea?

The Black Sea sends warm, moist air over western Georgia, giving it a humid subtropical climate where tea and citrus grow, while the wall of the Caucasus keeps out cold air from the north.

What do Georgians call their own country?

Sakartvelo has even caught on abroad: after Georgian diplomats objected that Gruzija echoed the Russian name for the country, Lithuania made Sakartvelas its official name for Georgia.

The Georgian language belongs to which language family?

Kartvelian is a tiny family of just Georgian, Svan, Mingrelian and Laz, with no proven relatives, so Georgian shares no roots with neighbouring Armenian, Azerbaijani or Russian.

At which Georgian site were 1.8-million-year-old skulls found, among the oldest human fossils ever discovered outside Africa?

Dmanisi was being dug as a ruined medieval town when archaeologists found that its old cellars had been cut into far older layers full of prehistoric animal bones, and then early human skulls.

Georgia hosts the earliest known sites of what, dating to about 6000 BCE?

Winemaking residue turned up in 8,000-year-old pottery jars from two Neolithic villages in Georgia, some decorated with grape clusters, overtaking finds from Iran as the oldest known evidence of wine.

Greek mythology placed the Golden Fleece in which ancient western Georgian kingdom?

Colchis was famed for its gold, and the ancient geographer Strabo reported that locals trapped gold dust from mountain streams in sheepskins, which he took to be the origin of the Golden Fleece myth.

Which 4th-century king made Christianity the state religion of Iberia, the ancient kingdom of eastern Georgia?

Mirian III is said to have converted after sudden darkness trapped him on a hunt and lifted only when he prayed to the Christian God, making Iberia one of the first Christian kingdoms.

Which missionary from Cappadocia is credited with converting the Georgian kingdom of Iberia to Christianity?

Saint Nino is said to have carried a cross of grapevine branches bound with strands of hair, and its drooping arms remain a symbol of the Georgian Orthodox Church.

Which dynasty rose in the early 9th century and ruled Georgia for a thousand years?

Prince Ashot I used infighting among Arab governors to build its power in Tao-Klarjeti.

The cathedral named after Bagrat III, first king of a unified Georgia, stands in which city?

Kutaisi's cathedral was wrecked by Ottoman forces in the 1690s, and a heavy-handed modern rebuild cost it its UNESCO World Heritage status in 2017.

Which two rulers' reigns define the Georgian Golden Age?

David IV and Tamar bookend the age: he drove back the Seljuk Turks, and under his great-granddaughter the kingdom stretched across the whole Caucasus, before Mongol invasions ended it from the 1220s.

At which battle did Georgia's King David the Builder inflict a crushing defeat on the Seljuk Turks?

Didgori opened the way for David to capture the capital, out of Georgian hands for centuries, and he made it the seat of his kingdom.

Medieval Georgian texts style Tamar, sole ruler from 1184, with which title?

King of kings is how Tamar was styled: Georgian texts call her king because she ruled as a monarch in her own right, not as a king's consort.

Which poem by Shota Rustaveli is considered Georgia's national epic?

The Knight in the Panther's Skin is set far from Georgia: its heroes are knights of Arabia and India, though Rustaveli's prologue says he sings it in praise of his own sovereign, Tamar.

In 1783 King Erekle II placed eastern Georgia under the protection of which empire, which annexed his kingdom outright 18 years later?

The Russian Empire promised protection in the Treaty of Georgievsk but sent no help when an Iranian army sacked the capital in 1795, then deposed the royal line and annexed the country in 1801.

Which Georgian writer led the national revival movement of the late 19th century?

Ilia Chavchavadze, still called the father of the nation, was shot dead in a roadside ambush in 1907 and later canonised by the Georgian Orthodox Church as Saint Ilia the Righteous.

When Georgia declared independence on 26 May 1918, it placed itself under the protection of which wartime power?

Germany's protection lasted only months: once it lost the First World War, British troops moved in instead and stayed until 1920.

Which army captured the Georgian capital in February 1921, ending the country's independence?

The Red Army invaded less than a year after Soviet Russia had recognised Georgia's independence by treaty, and only weeks after the Allies had granted the young republic full recognition.

Which event of 4–9 April 1989 discredited Soviet rule in Georgia?

Troops crushed a peaceful demonstration in the early hours of 9 April 1989, and most of the dead were women; Georgia chose the second anniversary of that day to declare its independence.

Khachapuri, the bread sold everywhere in Georgia from corner bakeries to upscale restaurants, is stuffed with what?

Cheese bread is such a staple that Georgian economists track inflation with a Khachapuri Index, modelled on the Big Mac Index, which follows the cost of the flour, dairy and other ingredients.

Which former Soviet foreign minister led Georgia from 1992 until 2003?

Eduard Shevardnadze had already run Georgia once, as its Communist Party boss from 1972; he came home in 1992 after a coup toppled the country's first elected president.

The bloodless 2003 uprising that forced Georgia's president to resign is known as what?

The Rose Revolution was named for the red roses protesters carried as they burst into parliament; the president was cut off in mid-speech and hurried away by his bodyguards.

Which French president negotiated the ceasefire that ended the August 2008 war between Russia and Georgia?

Nicolas Sarkozy stepped in because France held the European Union's rotating presidency that summer, and he carried the peace plan from Moscow to the Georgian capital in person.

Which party's 2012 election win was Georgia's first peaceful electoral transfer of power?

Georgian Dream was the creation of the billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, who was stripped of his Georgian citizenship within days of announcing it and was prime minister a year later.

Who won Georgia's 2018 presidential election, becoming the first woman elected to the office?

Salome Zourabichvili was born in Paris to Georgian refugees and was posted to the country as France's ambassador in 2003, then gave up the post to become Georgia's foreign minister.

In 2018 a court ruling made Georgia the first former Soviet republic to legalise what?

Cannabis use stopped being an offence when the Constitutional Court struck down the penalties for it, reasoning that users harm only themselves; growing and selling the drug remain crimes.

Greek myth says Zeus chained which Titan to a mountain in the Caucasus, the range along Georgia's northern border?

Prometheus was pinned to the rock so that an eagle could eat his liver, which grew back every night for the bird to eat again, until Heracles killed the eagle and set him free.

Which of Georgia's neighbours is the only one that belongs to NATO?

Turkey joined NATO in 1952. Georgia was itself promised eventual membership at the alliance's Bucharest summit in 2008, a pledge repeated at summits since and still unfulfilled.

The Mtkvari, the river that runs through Georgia's capital, crosses Azerbaijan and empties into which sea?

The Caspian Sea is really the world's largest inland body of water, so the river that flows past Georgia's capital, the Kura on most maps, never reaches an ocean.

Georgia covers about 69,700 km²; which of these European countries is closest to it in size?

Ireland is a near match in area, but Georgia packs far more into the space: its land climbs from a subtropical shoreline to glaciers and summits above 5,000 metres.

Which game bird, now found worldwide, takes its English name from a river in western Georgia?

The common pheasant was the 'Phasian bird' to the Greeks, who said it was plentiful along the Phasis; the river is today's Rioni, which reaches the sea at the port of Poti.

Besides Georgian, which language has official status in Georgia, within one autonomous region?

Abkhaz is written into Georgia's constitution as a second state language inside Abkhazia, a region that broke away when the government's forces were driven out in the war of 1992-93.

Which US president was the first to visit Georgia while in office?

George W. Bush spoke to a vast crowd in the capital's main square in May 2005, and a man in the crowd threw a live grenade towards the stage; it failed to go off.

Which seaside resort and oil port is the capital of Georgia's autonomous republic of Adjara?

Batumi owes its port to oil, piped all the way from Baku on the far side of the Caucasus, yet it doubles as a popular seaside resort.

Which religious group is Georgia's second largest, after the national church?

Muslims make up about a tenth of the population, and many are ethnic Georgians: the people of Adjara, in the south-west, converted to Islam during centuries of Ottoman rule.

Which alphabet is the Georgian language written in?

Its own alphabet has taken three forms since about the 5th century, and all of them are on UNESCO's heritage list: the two older scripts live on in church texts and the youngest does everything else.

The Georgian folk song Chakrulo left Earth in 1977 aboard which NASA probes?

Voyager carried the song on its Golden Record, the same disc as Bach, Mozart and Chuck Berry, and UNESCO later singled Chakrulo out when it honoured Georgian polyphonic singing.

At a Georgian feast, the tamada leads a long series of what?

Toasts set the pace of the whole meal: the tamada opens each round on a theme, and the guests then take turns to build on it before they drink.

Khinkali are Georgia's broth-filled meat dumplings; what do diners traditionally do with the thick knot of dough on top?

Leave it on the plate: the knot is a handle for holding the dumpling while you bite in and sip the broth, and the pile of discarded tops shows how many you have eaten.

Georgia's UNESCO-listed wine method ferments grapes for months in qvevri, sealed egg-shaped clay jars that are kept where?

Buried in the ground and sealed, the jar holds the juice together with the grape skins, stalks and pips, and the wine is left to ferment there for five to six months.

What reason did Russia give for banning Georgian wine in 2006?

Failed health checks were the official reason: Russia's chief sanitary inspector reported pesticide traces, and the ban came as relations between the two governments were souring.

Which sport, considered Georgia's national sport, resembles lelo burti, a folk game in which rival villages battle over a ball?

Rugby's popularity in Georgia is often credited to lelo, which is still played in country villages, and the national side are nicknamed the Lelos after it.

Which Georgian centre won NBA titles with the Golden State Warriors in 2017 and 2018?

Zaza Pachulia had come within 14,227 votes of starting the 2016 All-Star Game ahead of Kawhi Leonard, and he moved to Golden State for the following season.

Two Georgian women, Nona Gaprindashvili and Maia Chiburdanidze, held the women's world title in which game from 1962 to 1991?

Chess: Gaprindashvili lost the crown to her compatriot in 1978, and decades later she sued Netflix because The Queen's Gambit said she had never faced men; the case was settled in 2022.

Niko Pirosmani, who painted animals and everyday scenes on black oilcloth, is a leading name in which style?

Naïve art brought the self-taught Pirosmani lasting fame only after his death; in life he painted signs for shops and taverns to get by, and he died in poverty in 1918.

In Upper Svaneti, a UNESCO-listed mountain region of Georgia, families held off raiders from what kind of medieval stone home?

Tower houses of three to five storeys served as both family homes and defence posts, and the region's long isolation is what has kept so many of them standing.

Georgia's red-and-white national flag, adopted in 2004, is nicknamed after the symbols on it; what is it called?

The Five-Cross Flag is a medieval design that crowds carried as the opposition's banner in the street protests of 2003, and parliament made it the national flag in January 2004.

Which Soviet leader was born a cobbler's son named Jughashvili in the Georgian town of Gori?

Joseph Stalin trained as a priest at a seminary, left in 1899 to become a revolutionary, and later took the name by which he is known from the Russian word for steel.