Claim: Joseph Stalin was born in Eastern Europe.

Georgia -LRB- -LSB- ˈdʒɔrdʒə -RSB- საქართველო , tr . Sakartvelo , -LSB- sɑkʰɑrtʰvɛlɔ -RSB- -RRB- is a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia . Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe , it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea , to the north by Russia , to the south by Turkey and Armenia , and to the southeast by Azerbaijan . The capital and largest city is Tbilisi . Georgia covers a territory of 69700 km ² , and its 2016 population is about 3.72 million . Georgia is a unitary , semi-presidential republic , with the government elected through a representative democracy .   During the classical era , several independent kingdoms became established in what is now Georgia , such as Colchis and Iberia . The Georgians adopted Christianity in the early 4th century . A unified Kingdom of Georgia reached the peak of its political and economic strength during the reign of King David IV and Queen Tamar in the 12th and early 13th centuries . Thereafter , the kingdom declined and eventually disintegrated under hegemony of various regional powers , including the Mongols , the Ottoman Empire , and successive dynasties of Iran . In the late 18th century , the eastern Georgian Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti forged an alliance with the Russian Empire , which directly annexed the kingdom in 1801 and conquered the western Kingdom of Imereti in 1810 . Russian rule over Georgia was eventually acknowledged in various peace treaties with Iran and the Ottomans and the remaining Georgian territories were absorbed by the Russian Empire in a piecemeal fashion in the course of the 19th century . Following the Russian Revolution in 1917 , Georgia obtained its short-lived independence and established a republic led by the Social-Democrats in 1918 , only to be invaded by Soviet Russia in 1921 and subsequently absorbed into the Soviet Union as the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic .   A pro-independence movement led to the secession from the Soviet Union in April 1991 . For most of the following decade , post-communist Georgia suffered from a civil conflicts , secessionist wars in Abkhazia and South Ossetia , and economic crisis . Following the bloodless Rose Revolution in 2003 , Georgia pursued a strongly pro-Western foreign policy , aiming at NATO and European integration , and introduced a series of democratic and economic reforms , which brought about mixed results , but strengthened state institutions . The country 's Western orientation soon led to the worsening of relations with Russia , culminating in the brief Russo-Georgian War in August 2008 .   Georgia is a member of the United Nations , the Council of Europe , and the GUAM Organization for Democracy and Economic Development . It contains two de facto independent regions , Abkhazia and South Ossetia , which gained very limited international recognition after the 2008 Russo-Georgian War . Georgia and the overwhelming majority of the international community consider the regions to be part of Georgia 's sovereign territory under Russian military occupation .