In Classical antiquity and Greco-Roman geography, Colchis was an exonym for the Georgian polity of Egrisi located on the coast of the Black Sea, centered in present-day western Georgia.
In Greco-Roman geography, Iberia was an exonym for the Georgian kingdom of Kartli, known after its core province, which during Classical Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages was a significant monarchy in the Caucasus, either as an independent state or as a dependent of larger empires, notably the Sassanid and Roman empires. Iberia, centered on present-day Eastern Georgia, was bordered by Colchis in the west, Caucasian Albania in the east and Armenia in the south.
Pharnavaz I was a king of Kartli, an ancient Georgian kingdom known as Iberia in classical antiquity. The Georgian Chronicles credits him with being the first monarch founding the kingship of Kartli and the Pharnavazid dynasty, while other independent chronicles, such as The Conversion of Kartli make him the second Georgian monarch. Based on the medieval evidence, most scholars locate Pharnavaz's rule in the 3rd century BC: 302–237 BC according to Prince Vakhushti of Kartli, 299–234 BC according to Cyril Toumanoff and 284–219 BC according to Pavle Ingoroqva. Pharnavaz's rise, advent and imperial expansion of the Iberian monarchy was directly tied to the victory of Alexander the Great over the Achaemenid Empire. Pharnavaz ruled under the suzerainty of the Seleucid Empire.
The Laz language is a Kartvelian language spoken by the Laz people on the southeastern shore of the Black Sea. In 2007, it was estimated that there were around 20,000 native speakers in Turkey, in a strip of land extending from Melyat to the Georgian border, and around 1,000 native speakers around Adjara in Georgia. There are also around 1,000 native speakers of Laz in Germany.
Mingrelian or Megrelian is a Kartvelian language spoken in Western Georgia, primarily by the Mingrelians. The language was also called kolkhuri in the early 20th century. Mingrelian has historically been only a regional language within the boundaries of historical Georgian states and then modern Georgia, and the number of younger people speaking it has decreased substantially, with UNESCO designating it as a "definitely endangered language".
Mirian III was a king of Iberia or Kartli (Georgia), contemporaneous to the Roman emperor Constantine the Great. He was the founder of the royal Chosroid dynasty.
Kartli is a historical region in central-to-eastern Georgia traversed by the river Mtkvari (Kura), on which Georgia's capital, Tbilisi, is situated. Known to the Classical authors as Iberia, Kartli played a crucial role in the ethnic and political consolidation of the Georgians in the Middle Ages. Kartli had no strictly defined boundaries and they significantly fluctuated in the course of history. After the partition of the kingdom of Georgia in the 15th century, Kartli became a separate kingdom with its capital at Tbilisi. The historical lands of Kartli are currently divided among several administrative regions of Georgia.
The Svans are an ethnic subgroup of the Georgians (Kartvelians) living mostly in Svaneti, a region in northwest Georgia. They speak the Svan language and are mostly bilingual also in Georgian. Both these languages belong to the Kartvelian language family. In the pre-1930 Soviet census, the Svans were afforded their own "ethnic group" (natsional'nost) category. The self-designation of the Svan is Mushüan, which is probably reflected in the ethnonym Misimian of the Classical authors.
Mirian I was a king of Iberia who reigned in the 2nd century BC. An adopted son of his father-in-law King Sauromaces I, he was a Persian-born prince but governed over Iberia as a member of the Pharnavazid dynasty.
The Mingrelians are an indigenous Kartvelian-speaking ethnic subgroup of Georgians that mostly live in the Mingrelia region of Georgia. They also live in considerable numbers in Abkhazia and Tbilisi. In the pre-1930 Soviet census, the Mingrelians were afforded their own ethnic group category, alongside many other ethnic subgroups of Georgians.
The Kingdom of Abkhazia, also known as Abasgia or Egrisi-Abkhazia, was a medieval feudal state in the Caucasus which was established in the 780s. Through dynastic succession, it was united in 1008 with the Kingdom of the Iberians, forming the Kingdom of Georgia.
Aryan Kartli or Arian Kartli was a country claimed by the medieval Georgian chronicle "The Conversion of Kartli" to be the earlier homeland of the Georgians of Kartli.
The nation of Georgia was first unified as a kingdom under the Bagrationi dynasty by the King Bagrat III of Georgia in the early 11th century, arising from a number of predecessor states of the ancient kingdoms of Colchis and Iberia. The Kingdom of Georgia flourished during the 10th to 12th centuries under King David IV the Builder and Queen Tamar the Great, and fell to the Mongol invasion by 1243, and after a brief reunion under George V the Brilliant to the Timurid Empire. By 1490, Georgia was fragmented into a number of petty kingdoms and principalities, which throughout the Early Modern period struggled to maintain their autonomy against Ottoman and Iranian domination until Georgia was finally annexed by the Russian Empire in the 19th century. After a brief bid for independence with the Democratic Republic of Georgia of 1918–1921, Georgia was part of the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic from 1922 to 1936, and then formed the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic until the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Georgia is the Western exonym for the country in the Caucasus natively known as Sakartvelo. The Armenian exonym is Vrastan ; predominantly Muslim nations refer to it as Gurjistan or its many similar variations; while in mostly Slavic languages it is Gruziya.
The Kartvelian languages are a language family indigenous to the South Caucasus and spoken primarily in Georgia. There are approximately 5.2 million Kartvelian speakers worldwide, with large groups in Russia, Iran, the United States, the European Union, Israel, and northeastern Turkey. The Kartvelian family has no known relation to any other language family, making it one of the world's primary language families.
The Zan languages, or Zanuri or Colchidian, are a branch of the Kartvelian languages constituted by the Mingrelian and Laz languages. The grouping is disputed as some Georgian linguists consider the two to form a dialect continuum of one Zan language. This is often challenged on the most commonly applied criteria of mutual intelligibility when determining borders between languages, as Mingrelian and Laz are only partially mutually intelligible, though speakers of one language can recognize a sizable amount of vocabulary of the other, primarily due to semantic loans, lexical loans and other areal features resulting from geographical proximity and historical close contact common for dialect continuums.
The area of Georgia was under Roman control between the 1st century BC and the 7th century AD. This control varied by time and was intermittent over the kingdoms of Colchis and Iberia in the Caucasus region. These kingdoms roughly correspond to some of the western and eastern parts of modern Georgia.
Saspeires are a people of uncertain origin mentioned by Herodotus. According to the most widespread theory, they are a Kartvelian tribe, however, their origins have also been attributed to Scythian people. The toponym of modern day city İspir and ancient region of Speri is thought by some to be derived from their name. According to Rayfield, Diauehi is mentioned in the Greek records as Taochoi, but Herodotus in 450 BC refers to them as Sasperi. the name Sper with a Georgian prefix of place Sa-, which evolved into the term Iberian.
The land where the Persians live extends to the southern sea which is called Red; beyond these to the north are the Medes, and beyond the Medes the Saspires, and beyond the Saspires the Colchians, whose country extends to the northern sea into which the Phasis river flows; so these four nations live between the one sea and the other.
Sasanian Iberia refers to the period the Kingdom of Iberia was under the suzerainty of the Sasanian Empire. The period includes when it was ruled by Marzbans (governors) appointed by the Sasanid Iranian king, and later through the Principality of Iberia.
The unification of the Georgian realm was the 10th-century political movement that resulted in the consolidation of various Georgian Crowns into a single realm with centralized government in 1008, the Kingdom of Georgia, or Sakartvelo. Originally initiated by the powerful local aristocracy of the eristavs, due to centuries-long power struggles and aggressive wars of succession between the Georgian monarchs, arising from their independent ruling traditions of classical antiquity and its Hellenistic-era monarchical establishments in Colchis and Iberia. The initiative was supported by David III the Great of the Bagrationi dynasty, the most powerful ruler in the Caucasus at the time, who would put prince royal Bagrat, his kin and foster-son, on Iberian throne, who would eventually be crowned as a King of all-Georgia. David's Bagratid successors would become the champions of national unification, just like the Rurikids or the Capetians, but despite their enthusiasm, some of the Georgian polities that had been targeted for unification did not join the unification freely and would actively fight against it throughout this process, mostly seeking help and support from the Byzantine Empire and the Abbasid Caliphate. Even though, 1008 unification of the realm would unite most of western and central Georgian lands, the process will continue to the east, and eventually, would reach its total completion under King David IV the Builder. This unprecedented political unification of lands and the meteoric rise of Bagrationi power would inaugurate the Georgian Golden Age and creation of the only medieval pan-Caucasian empire attaining its greatest geographical extent, that would dominate entire Caucasus in the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries. The centralizing power of the crown started to weaken in the 14th century, and even though the tide turned back under King George V the Brilliant, the reunification came up to be short-lived; unified realm would evaporate after invasions of Mongols and Timur that would result in its total collapse in the 15th century.
Georgia 3,224,600 [4] [lower-alpha 3] 
Georgian Orthodoxy [5] 
Catholicism and 
Islam [6] 
