page_title: Names of Georgia (country)
section_title: Gruziya
hierarchical_section_title: Names of Georgia (country) / Exonyms / Gruziya
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of Muscovy (the so-called Fedor Godunov map) Русский: Карта России Гесселя Герритса (основанная на чертёже Фёдора Годунова)
context_page_description: Georgia is the Western exonym for the country in the Caucasus natively known as Sakartvelo. The Russian exonym is Gruziya.
  Both endonym and exonym for the country are derived from the same state-forming core and central Georgian region of Kartli, known as Iberia to the Classical and Byzantine sources around which the early medieval cultural and political unity of the Georgians was formed.
  External Western and Russian exonyms are likely derived from gurğān, the Persian designation of the Georgians, evolving from Middle Persian wurğān/wirucān and Old Persian varkân meaning "the land of the wolves". This is also reflected in Old Armenian virk', it being a source of Ancient Greek iberia, that entered Latin as Hiberia.
  The first mention of the name spelled as “Georgia” is on the mappa mundi of Pietro Vesconte dated AD 1320.
  The full, official name of the country is simply "Georgia", as specified in the Georgian constitution which reads "Georgia is the name of the state of Georgia." Before the 1995 constitution came into force the country's name was the Republic of Georgia.
context_section_description: The Russian exonym Gruziya (Грузия ['gruzʲɪjə]) is also of Persian origin, from Persian: گرجستان Gorjestân (Turkish Gürcistan Gurjistan, Ossetian: Гуырдзыстон Gwyrdzyston, Mongolian Гүрж Gürj.)
  The Russian name first occurs in the travel records of Ignatiy Smolnyanin as gurzi (гурзи) (1389).
  А въ церковь ту влѣзщи, ино направѣ Гурзійскаа служба, Гурзіи служатъ. 
  There is a church and there is a  Gurz [i.e. Georgian] liturgy, Gurzis [i.e. Georgians] serve there.
  - Travels in Jerusalem
  Afanasy Nikitin calls Georgia as gurzynskaya zemlya (Гурзыньская земля, "Gurzin land") (1466–72).
  Да Севастѣи губѣ, да Гурзынской земли добро обилію всѣм; да Торская земля обилна. 
  And in Sevastia, and in the Gurzin land [i.e. Georgian land] everything is in abundance, and Torsk land [i.e. Turkish land] is abundant. 
  - A Journey Beyond the Three Seas
  As a result of permutation of sounds "Gurz" transformed into "Gruz" and eventually "Gruz-iya". The Russian name was brought into several Slavic languages (Bulgarian, Belarusian, Polish, Czech, Serbo-Croatian, Slovak, Slovenian, Macedonian, Ukrainian) as well as other languages historically in contact with the Russian Empire (such as Latvian, Lithuanian, Estonian, Hungarian, Yiddish, Kyrgyz, Turkmen, Uyghur, Chinese, Japanese, Korean).
caption: "Map of Russia" commissioned by Feodor II of Russia and published by Hessel Gerritsz in Amsterdam mentions "Iveria sive Grusinæ Imperium" i.e. Iberia or the Empire of Georgia.
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