Kartli

Kartli ( _ka. ქართლი) is the largest and most populated province of Eastern Georgia. It includes the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, and two other major cities, Gori and Rustavi. It is bordered by the mountain-range of the Greater Caucasus to the north, by the province of Kakheti to the east, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the south, by Turkey and the Samtskhe-Javakheti region to the south-west and by the province of Imereti to the west.

In the 3rd century BC the ancient eastern Georgian Kingdom of Kartli, also known as Iberia, was established here. Its king declared Christianity the official religion of Kartli in AD 337. In the early Middle Ages, Kartli lost its political importance because of the struggle between the king and strong feudal rulers, as well as the aggression of the strong Persian Kingdom. Even so, in a way, it remained Georgia's leader because of the independence of its Church and culture from Byzantine influence. Kartli was part of the united Georgian Kingdom in the central Middle Ages. (Georgia was united at the beginning of the 11th century, but Tbilisi, Kartli's main city, was not liberated until 1122. Immediately afterwards, the Georgian capital moved from Kutaisi to Tbilisi.) After the disintegration of the united Kingdom in the 15th century, Kartli became an independent Kingdom, which suffered from frequent Persian invasions. In 1762, the Kingdom of Kartli was united with the neighboring Kingdom of Kakheti. This Kingdom too was soon weakened by the Persian aggression. In 1801 the Kingdom of Kartl-Kakheti was annexed to the Russian Empire. Kartli was part of the independent Democratic Republic of Georgia in 1918-1921, of the Transcaucasian SFSR in 1922-1936 (whose capital was Tbilisi, the province's and Georgia's main city), and of the Georgian SSR in 1936-1991.

Since the disintegration of the USSR in 1991, Kartli is part of the independent Republic of Georgia, while Tbilisi, Kartli's main city, is the nation's capital. Besides Tbilisi, the province of Kartli is divided into three administrative regions: Kvemo Kartli (the capital of which is Rustavi), Mtskheta-Mtianeti (with Mtskheta as its capital) and Shida Kartli (the capital of which is Gori). The last region officially includes, inter alia, the historical district of Samachablo, the majority of whose population is Ossetian since the 18th century [During the 16th-18th centuries, the Ossetians, who were forced to flee their land in the fields of the Northern Caucasus, migrated southwards to the northern slopes of the Greater Caucasus mountain range. Some of them crossed the mountains to the Southern Caucasus and thus settled in the mountainous areas in the north of Kartli.] and which had the status of an autonomous district within the Georgian SSR during the Soviet period (1922-1991). Since the 1991–1992 South Ossetia War, this district, which has since 1921 been known as South Ossetia, is "de facto" an independent state, although the majority of countries do not recognize its sovereignty.

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