Georgia will host this year’s World Tourism Day celebrations. Since we don’t have historical connections to the country, and it’s not shown on TV very often, many people (even adults) don’t know much about Georgia. In fact, if you say “Georgia”, most people will automatically think of the US state, rather than this European country.
Let’s learn a few fun facts about this unique and truly ancient land!
The country of Georgia lies mostly within the Caucasus Mountains and borders the Black Sea, with Russia to the north and Turkey to the south.
Georgia has almost every type of climate, from subtropical and alpine to semi-desert. In fact, there are 12 different climate zones found there!
The country’s name is ‘Sakartvelo’ in its native language. It translates to “land where the Kartveli live”, with Kartli being a central region. St. George is the patron saint of the country, and the English name most likely comes from the Persian and Turkish version of the name George, ‘Gorj’ and ‘Gurju’.
Georgia was one of the earliest countries to adopt Christianity as its state religion (in the year 337), second only to Armenia. That’s almost 1,700 years ago!
Georgia is home to the first known humans in Europe, and anywhere in the world outside of Africa. Human skulls (and a tooth) were found in separate excavations there, and were 1.8 million years old!
Georgia is a land of many mountains, and some of its ancient villages are considered the highest permanent settlements in Europe: Bochorna and Ushguli are found at an altitude of 2,345m (7,694ft) and 2,100m (6,890ft) above sea level.
The famous Alps are easily mistaken for the highest mountain range in Europe, but actually the Caucasus Mountains are! They stretch along the border between Georgia and Russia! The highest peak is in Russia, and Georgia’s highest mountain, Shkhara, is 400 metres higher than France’s famous Mont Blanc.
The country is also home to the deepest cave in the world: Veryovkina Cave in the Gagra Mountain range reaches an incredible depth of 2,212m (7,257ft).
Speaking of amazing caves and mountains, Vardzia, which is carved into Erusheti Mountain, is an entire cave-city, described as a ‘fortress-monastery-palace complex’. It was built as a refuge against the raiding Mongol Empire, and has a whopping 6,000 rooms, a bakery, a church, wine cellars, an irrigation system and royal apartments.
Georgia is the birthplace of wine, one of the most popular drinks in the world today. The world’s earliest-known winemakers were Stone Age farmers in the south of the country. They produced it as early as 6,000 BC (BC means “Before Christ”, so this means they produced wine 8,000 years ago)!
The Georgian language is one of the most unique languages in the world and boasts its own alphabet, which has 33 letters (compared to English which has 26 letters). It is one of the oldest in the world, and has not changed much during its long history. That means it’s easy for children today to read historical text from hundreds of years ago. The Georgian language is strongly influenced by Greek and Persian. It does not use capital letters.
There are thousands of languages used around the world, many of them sharing scripts. There are more than 7,000 languages, but only 14 scripts. Georgian script is one of them!
