Tbilisi
Tbilisi, or Tiflis, the capital of the Republic of Georgia. It lies in a hilly area on the Kura River, just south of the Caucasus Mountains.
The city is highly industrialized, having both heavy and light industries. Electric locomotives, machine tools, precision instruments, processed foods, and textiles are among its many products.
In Tbilisi are the Georgian Academy of Sciences and a number of institutions of higher learning, including the University of Tbilisi. The city has numerous museums, a symphony orchestra, and an opera and a ballet company.
Tbilisi was founded on the site of a fort in 458 A.D. and soon became the center of the Kartli dynasty of eastern Georgia. Russia annexed the city in 1801. During the revolutionary period, it served as the capital of the anti-Bolshevik Transcaucasian Federation (1917–18) and of independent Georgia (1918–20). Tbilisi became the capital of the Transcaucasian Federated Soviet Socialist Republic in 1922, of the Georgian S.S.R. in 1936, and of independent Georgia in 1991.
Population: 1,260,000.