Portal:Georgia (country)/Intro
Georgia (Georgian: საქართველო, romanized: sakartvelo, IPA: [sakʰartʰʷelo] ) is a transcontinental country in the Caucasus region. Spanning Eastern Europe and West Asia, it is bounded by the Black Sea to the west, Russia to the north and northeast, Turkey to the southwest, Armenia to the south, and Azerbaijan to the southeast. Georgia covers an area of 69,700 square kilometres (26,900 sq mi), comprising a diverse landscape of mountains, valleys, subtropical plains, and forests. It has a population of 3.7 million, of which over a third live in the capital and largest city, Tbilisi. Georgians, who are indigenous to the region, constitute a majority and are the titular nation of the country.
Georgia has been inhabited since prehistory, hosting the world's earliest known sites of winemaking, gold mining, and textiles. The classical era saw the emergence of several kingdoms, such as Colchis and Iberia, that formed the nucleus of the modern Georgian state. In the early fourth century, Georgians officially adopted Christianity, which contributed to their ethnogenesis and gradual unification into the Kingdom of Georgia by the early 11th century. Georgia reached its Golden Age during the High Middle Ages under the reigns of King David IV and Queen Tamar. Beginning in the 15th century, the kingdom gradually declined and disintegrated under the hegemony of various regional powers, including the Mongols, the Ottoman Empire, and Persia, before being gradually annexed into the Russian Empire during the 19th century.
After the Russian Revolution in 1917, Georgia briefly emerged as an independent republic under German protection, but was invaded and annexed by the Soviet Union in 1922, becoming one of its constituent republics. In the 1980s, an independence movement grew quickly, leading to Georgia's secession from the Soviet Union in April 1991. For much of the subsequent decade, the country endured economic crises, political instability, and secessionist wars in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Following the peaceful Rose Revolution in 2003, Georgia strongly pursued a pro-Western foreign policy, introducing a series of democratic and economic reforms aimed at integration into the European Union and NATO. This Western orientation led to worsening relations with Russia, culminating in the Russo-Georgian War of 2008 and continued Russian occupation of parts of Georgia.
Georgia is a representative democracy governed as a unitary parliamentary republic. It is a developing country with an emerging free market economy, undertaking ongoing reforms that have increased economic freedom and reduced corruption, poverty, and unemployment, which remain challenges. Georgia ranks high in metrics of press freedom and civil liberties by regional standards; in 2018, it became the second country in the world, and the only former socialist state, to legalize cannabis. Georgia is a member of numerous international organizations, including the Council of Europe, Eurocontrol, BSEC, GUAM, Energy Community. As part of the Association Trio, Georgia is a candidate for EU membership. (Full article...)