MAPS OF HISTORY · HISTORY OF · Georgia

ONE LAND · 8 ATLASES

Georgia, on the map of history

What was Georgia before it was Georgia? Below, every era of this land in the Maps of History collection — who ruled it, what it was called, and when control changed — each line linked to the dated map that shows it. Modern borders stand in as an honest approximation; every atlas says so on the map itself.

Colchis & Iberia (mod. Georgia) · The Rise and Fall of Rome, 264 BC – AD 476

OPEN ROME ON THE LIVING MAP →

Georgia — the Christian Caucasus · The Crusades, 1095–1291

The Christian kingdom of the Caucasus reached its golden age in exactly these years, under Queen Tamar — a Christian great power the crusaders knew of by rumour but never joined. Georgia’s strength was broken not by any Muslim neighbour but by the Mongols, whose thirteenth-century storm reshaped the whole region east of the crusaders’ world.

OPEN THE CRUSADES ON THE LIVING MAP →

Kingdom of Georgia · The Mongol Empire, 1206–1294

The kingdom of Georgia, crusader-correspondent and Caucasus power, was shattered twice by the Great Raid (1221–22) before Europe knew the raiders’ name, then subjugated by Chormaqan in the 1230s. Georgian heavy cavalry afterward fought in Mongol armies from Alamut to Baghdad — vassalage meant service, and service meant survival.

OPEN THE MONGOL EMPIRE ON THE LIVING MAP →

Georgia · The Age of Revolutions, 1775–1848

OPEN THE AGE OF REVOLUTIONS ON THE LIVING MAP →

Georgia · The Russian Revolution, 1905–1924

From 1918 an independent republic under moderate Mensheviks — a rare democratic socialist experiment. It was invaded and sovietized by the Red Army in February–March 1921, the last independent piece of the old empire to fall. Georgia’s conquest, pushed by a Georgian named Stalin, foreshadowed how the nationalities question would be “solved.”

OPEN THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION ON THE LIVING MAP →

Georgia (Russian Empire) · The Great War, 1914–1918

OPEN WWI ON THE LIVING MAP →

Georgia · The War Room — WW2, 1936–1945

OPEN WW2 ON THE LIVING MAP →

Georgia · The Cold War, 1945–1991

OPEN THE COLD WAR ON THE LIVING MAP →