Georgia

Georgia sits in the Caucasus on the eastern shore of the Black Sea, where Eastern Europe meets Western Asia. Russia lies to the north, Turkey and Armenia to the south and Azerbaijan to the southeast. The country covers about 69,700 square kilometres and the 2024 census counted roughly 3.7 million people, more than a third of them in the capital, Tbilisi. The official language is Georgian, written in its own alphabet, and the currency is the lari.

The Greater and Lesser Caucasus ranges wrap around most of the country, with plains and valleys between them. In the northwest, Shkhara rises to 5,203 metres, Georgia's highest point; in the northeast stands Kazbek, a dormant volcano 5,054 metres high. The west is warm and humid, fed by air from the sea, while the east is drier, with hot summers and cold winters. The Black Sea coastline runs for about 310 kilometres.

Tbilisi climbs both banks of the Kura River, its neighbourhoods spread between 380 and 770 metres above sea level. The old town has carved wooden balconies, sulphur baths under brick domes and Narikala fortress on the ridge above, reached by cable car from Rike Park. Some 20 kilometres north lies Mtskheta, the old capital at the meeting of two rivers, whose historic monuments have been on the World Heritage List since 1994.

Heading north, the Georgian Military Road crosses the Jvari Pass at 2,379 metres and drops into Stepantsminda in the Kazbegi area, where Gergeti church stands at 2,170 metres beneath Mount Kazbek. To the east, the vineyards of Kakheti fill the Alazani Valley, watched over by the hilltop town of Sighnaghi and its 18th-century walls. Out west is Kutaisi, the third-largest city, close to Gelati, Prometheus Cave and narrow river canyons.

On the Black Sea, Batumi, the second city, pairs a long seaside boulevard and a botanical garden with a skyline of new towers. High in Svaneti, stone towers crowd the villages of Mestia and Ushguli, a World Heritage Site since 1996. Georgia has four sites on the list: three cultural and one natural, the Colchic Rainforests and Wetlands. Wine is still made in buried clay jars called qvevri, a method UNESCO added to its intangible heritage list in 2013.

The most comfortable months are May and June, then September and October, when Tbilisi is mild. Summer belongs to the mountains and the sea, winter to the ski slopes of Gudauri. Georgia runs on UTC+4; the main gateway is Tbilisi International Airport, followed by Batumi and Kutaisi.[1,2,40,15,4,5,6,7,10,3,16,13,14,19,20,30,31,33,24,25,36,38,29,46,17,48,47]Source1. Georgia (country) · Wikipedia2. Geography of Georgia (country) · Wikipedia40. Shkhara · Wikipedia15. Mount Kazbek · Wikipedia4. Tbilisi · Wikipedia5. Old Tbilisi · Wikipedia6. Abanotubani · Wikipedia7. Narikala · Wikipedia10. Mtskheta · Wikipedia3. Georgia — World Heritage properties · UNESCO World Heritage Centre16. Georgian Military Road · Wikipedia13. Stepantsminda · Wikipedia14. Gergeti Trinity Church · Wikipedia19. Kakheti · Wikipedia20. Signagi · Wikipedia30. Kutaisi · Wikipedia31. Gelati Monastery · Wikipedia33. Prometheus Cave Natural Monument · Wikipedia24. Batumi · Wikipedia25. Batumi Botanical Garden · Wikipedia36. Svaneti · Wikipedia38. Ushguli · Wikipedia29. Colchic Rainforests and Wetlands · Wikipedia46. Kvevri · Wikipedia17. Gudauri · Wikipedia48. Tbilisi International Airport · Wikipedia47. Georgian lari · Wikipedia