Georgia 🇬🇪

Georgia is a sovereign country in Western Asia, in the wider region of Asia. Unlike most entries, its formal name adds nothing to the short one. Its seat of government is Tbilisi.

The population is about 3.7 million, placing it 130th of 249 by population — between Croatia above it and Eritrea below. Measured only against its own subregion, it is 10th of 17 in size and 14th in population.

It covers 69,700 km², which ranks it 122nd of the 249 countries and territories in this dataset — just behind Ireland and just ahead of Sri Lanka. For scale, it is almost exactly the same size as Ireland.

The coordinates the dataset gives are 42.0° N, 43.5° E, which puts it in the northern hemisphere, roughly 4,675 km from the equator, in what geographers would call temperate latitudes.

Spain, North Korea and Andorra sit at almost exactly the same latitude on other parts of the globe.

4 countries share a land border with it: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Russia and Türkiye. The largest of them by area is Russia, which is also the most populous. Together those neighbours hold about 242.3 million people.

It has both a coastline and land borders, which is the most common arrangement of all.

Spread across 69,700 km², that works out at about 53 people per square kilometre, which makes it less crowded than the typical entry on this list. For comparison, the median entry on this list sits near 91 per square kilometre.

Georgian is the only official language. No other entry in this dataset lists Georgian, so on this list it stands alone.

The demonym is Georgian, so residents are Georgians.

Against Asia as a whole it is the 41st most populous of 50 entries, and it accounts for 1.2% of everyone living in Western Asia.

The lari (GEL) is used only in Georgia among the 249 entries on this site. Its own currency is one of the clearest markers of an economy that sets its own monetary policy rather than importing somebody else's.

Georgian is listed for Georgia and for no other entry on this site. A language confined to one country is unusual, and it is normally a sign of long isolation or of deliberate revival.

Zoom in from the world to Western Asia and Georgia sits 14th of 17 by population and 10th by area. Its immediate company in that ordering is Kuwait just above and Armenia just below, which is a more honest comparison set than a global league table.

Türkiye is the largest of the group by population, and every entry in Western Asia has its own page here if you want to work through the whole neighbourhood rather than one country at a time.

• 🇰🇼 Kuwait
• 🇦🇲 Armenia
• 🇹🇷 Türkiye

Put next to every other entry on this site, Georgia ranks 122nd of 249 by area and 130th by population. That works out at 0.047% of the combined land area of all 249 entries and 0.046% of their combined population. Those denominators matter: this list includes territories and dependencies as well as UN member states, so a rank here is not the same as a rank among sovereign countries.

For a sense of scale, the entries immediately either side of Georgia in the size ordering are Ireland at 70,273 km² and Sri Lanka at 65,610 km², against Georgia's 69,700 km². If you can already picture one of those, you can picture this one.

Density tells a different story from either raw figure. Georgia averages 53 people per square kilometre of total area, which makes it middling in density — 162nd of the 247 entries that have both a population and a measured area. Total area includes inland water, so the true figure for habitable land is higher than this.

It uses the lari (₾, GEL). It shares that currency with.

If a quiz asks for the capital of Georgia, the answer is Tbilisi.

The top-level domain is .ge. Calls from overseas start with +995. In ISO terms it is ge in two letters and GEO in three.

Georgia is one of the 192 UN member states in this dataset. The other 57 entries are territories, dependencies or observers, which is why totals on this site run to 249 rather than the familiar 195.