(Sak’art’velo). State of Southwest Asia (69,688 km²). Capital: T’bilisi. Administrative division: autonomous republics (2), regions (9), cities (1). Population: 4,659,100 (2008 estimate). Language: Georgian. Religion: Orthodox 83.9%, Muslims 9.9%, Apostolic Armenians 3.9%, Catholics 0.8%, others 1.5%. Monetary unit: lari (100 tetri). Human Development Index: 0.763 (93rd place). Borders: Russian Federation (N and NE), Azerbaijan (SE), Armenia (S), Turkey (SW), Black Sea (W). Member of: Council of Europe, CIS, EBRD, UN, OSCE and WTO.
The Bolshevik revolution clashed in Georgia with a Menshevik majority, which defended itself by allying itself to the “white” armies and foreign powers. In 1917, with the victory of the Bolsheviks in Petrograd, Georgia and other neighboring territories came under the control of the Mensheviks and in 1918 Transcaucasia broke away from Soviet Russia asking for help from Germany, which together with England and Turkey sent troops to the territory (1918-1920). In February 1921 the Red Army invaded Georgia, weakened by internal revolts. In 1936 the Transcaucasian federation broke up and Georgia became one of the 15 republics of the Soviet Union. From the end of the 1920s to the beginning of the 1950s there was a strong repression of nationalistic ideas, the collectivization of agricultural areas and the country was subjected to heavy purges. In the Soviet era, the country experienced industrialization and the formation of the communist ruling class. In 1953 EA Ševardnadze, leader of the Communist Youth, he was appointed police chief in T’bilisi, while in 1972 he became first secretary of the Communist Party. With the new constitution (1978) the USSR imposed Russian as the official language, but the protests and pressure of the same Ševardnadze obtained the abolition of this rule. In the 1990 elections for the Georgian Soviet, the Round Table-Free Georgia coalition won a landslide and Zviad Gamsakhurdia became its leader. According to COUNTRYAAH, Georgia is a nation in Western Asia, the capital city of which is Tbilisi. The latest population of Georgia is 3,989,178. ACEINLAND: Lists and descriptions of main religions and beliefs in Georgia, including religion demographics and statistics on Christianity, Islam, Judaism, etc.
GEOGRAPHY
The territory is mainly mountainous, including the southern side of the Greater Caucasus to the N and the Little Caucasus to the S; only in the center does it lower into the plains of the river Rion (the ancient Colchis) to the W and of the river Kurato E. Main rivers, rich in water in all seasons, are beyond the Kura, the Rion, the Inguri, the Kodori and the Čoroh. The climate, subtropical on the coastal strip, becomes harsh on the mountain slopes, but is hot and dry in the eastern areas.
