Flags of Georgia

Republic of Georgia (modern)

Who & why: Georgia declares restoration of independence on 9 April 1991 as the Soviet Union unravels. The 1990s bring civil conflict and the de facto loss of Abkhazia and South Ossetia; the bloodless 2003 Rose Revolution, led by Mikheil Saakashvili, unseats the post-Soviet government and pushes the country toward the West. A brief war with Russia over South Ossetia follows in 2008.

What it represents: the 'Five Cross Flag' was adopted by Parliament on 14 January 2004 (Wikipedia and Flags of the World agree), with Presidential Decree No. 31 of 25 January 2004 fixing its construction. Wikipedia dates the five-cross banner to the 12th century and says a coin of David IV found in 2021 shows a 'folded five-cross composition' on its reverse (per Georgia's State Council of Heraldry); Flags of the World cites a description of 'a white-colored cloth with five red crosses' in the Book of All Kingdoms (1345-1350). Both give the 5th-century single-cross flag of Vakhtang I only as supposed or reported, and neither calls the design Bagrationi. Before 2004 the 1918 design was re-established, 8 December 1991 per Wikipedia.

Soviet Georgia

Who & why: despite a May 1920 treaty in which Soviet Russia formally recognized Georgian independence, the Red Army invades in February 1921 and the Menshevik government falls within weeks, its leaders fleeing to Paris. Georgia is folded into the Transcaucasian SFSR alongside Armenia and Azerbaijan from December 1922 until the 1936 "Stalin Constitution" splits it out as its own Georgian SSR. Stalin and his security chief Lavrentiy Beria are both Georgian-born, a fact often noted about the republic's outsized role in Soviet politics.

What it represents: a red flag. Wikipedia and Flags of the World agree that the Georgian SSR flag of 11 April 1951 (used to November 1990) had a red hammer and sickle with a red star in a blue sun in the canton and a blue bar across the upper part; Wikipedia adds that this was the only Union Republic flag whose hammer and sickle was not gold. Earlier flags were plain red with gold initials at the hoist (Cyrillic 1922-37, Georgian script from 1937). The gold emblem and white-edged stripe once described here are not borne out by those sources.

Democratic Republic of Georgia

Who & why: a short-lived Transcaucasian federation collapses after barely a month, and Georgia declares independence on 26 May 1918 under Noe Zhordania's Social Democratic (Menshevik) government — the first modern Georgian state in over a century. The young republic fights border conflicts with Armenia and Azerbaijan and a war with Soviet Russia before falling to the Red Army invasion of February 1921.

What it represents: a dark red (wine) field with black and white bands in the canton. Wikipedia says the design was by the painter Iakob Nikoladze, who won a national flag-design contest, and that the Soviet Union abolished the flag after Georgia was incorporated in 1921. Wikipedia reads the colours as wine-red for past and future good times, black for Russian rule and white for hope of peace; the sources read do not say it was chosen to break with Bagrationi heraldry.

Russian imperial rule

Who & why: Tsar Paul I annexes the eastern kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti outright in 1801, overriding the 1783 Treaty of Georgievsk, which had only promised Russian protection. The western kingdoms and principalities — Imereti's monarchy ends in 1810, with Guria, Mingrelia, and Abkhazia absorbed piecemeal over the following decades — are folded in one by one until Russian control of the whole territory is complete. Russian rule lasts until the empire's collapse amid the 1917 revolutions.

What it represents: the page's drawing shows a black-gold-white tricolor. The sources read do not cover the flags of Georgia under Russian imperial rule (Wikipedia only links to a related article), so the claim that this tricolor was flown over Georgian territory is not confirmed by them.

Fragmented kingdoms: Kartli, Kakheti, Imereti

Who & why: Georgia's last full reunification, under Giorgi V "the Brilliant" (r. 1299–1346), does not survive Timur's devastating invasions of the 1380s–90s; by 1490 the kingdom has split permanently into Kartli, Kakheti, and Imereti, plus smaller principalities such as Guria, Mingrelia, and Samtskhe. The 1555 Treaty of Amasya formalizes an Ottoman-Persian partition of the region, with western Georgian lands falling into the Ottoman sphere and eastern lands into the Persian one — a division renewed by later treaties for the next two and a half centuries, even as local Bagrationi-descended dynasties keep nominal rule throughout.

What it represents: no single state flag is drawn for this fractured era. Wikipedia shows flags for Mingrelia (1550s, 1560s and 18th century) and Kakheti (18th century), and gives 1008-1490 for one variant of the Kingdom of Georgia flag; it gives no dates for Imereti or Samtskhe-Saatabago. The sources read do not state that a maroon-and-gold cross stayed in local use across the courts, so the drawing is a reconstruction.

Mongol overlordship and the last reunification

Who & why: Georgian forces first meet Mongol raiders in 1221 and are beaten badly; by 1243 Queen Rusudan has submitted to Mongol overlordship, paying tribute and supplying troops to what becomes the Ilkhanate after 1256. Georgian kings keep local authority as tributary vassals, and Giorgi V "the Brilliant" even manages one last full reunification of the kingdom (r. 1299–1346) as Mongol power fades — the final period before Georgia splinters for good.

What it represents: no distinct Georgian state flag is attested for this vassal period in the sources read: neither covers Mongol-era flags (Flags of the World says only that Giorgi V drove out the Mongols). The field shown is a generic representation, not a documented Georgian banner.

Kingdom of Georgia (Bagrationi, unified)

Who & why: Bagrat III completes the unification of Georgia's fractured principalities — Abkhazia, Kartli, Tao-Klarjeti — into a single crown, a project his Bagrationi dynasty had built toward for generations; his coronation around 1008 marks the first time a unified Georgian kingdom exists. The kingdom reaches its "Golden Age" under Queen Tamar (r. 1184–1213), whose armies push Georgian influence across much of the Caucasus and whose reign is remembered as the medieval kingdom's cultural and territorial peak. Mongol invasions beginning in the 1220s end this era of full independence.

What it represents: the drawing shows a maroon field with a gold cross. Wikipedia and Flags of the World describe other things: a single red St George-style cross on white for earlier Georgian kings (Flags of the World, undated; Vakhtang I, 5th century, 'supposedly', per Wikipedia), a dark red cross and a star on white attributed by tradition to Queen Tamar (r. 1184-1213), and the five-cross design dated by Wikipedia to the 12th century. The sources read do not confirm a maroon field or gold cross, nor coinage, seals or donor portraits showing one.

Christianization and fragmented principalities

Who & why: the kingdom of Iberia (Kartli) adopts Christianity as its state religion around 326–337, traditionally credited to St. Nino, making it one of the earliest Christian states in the world. The following centuries bring Byzantine and Sasanian Persian overlordship, a Muslim Arab emirate centered on Tbilisi from the 7th century, and a patchwork of Georgian principalities — Abkhazia, Tao-Klarjeti, Kakheti, Kartli — each ruled by its own branch of local nobility, none commanding the whole territory until the Bagrationi unification of 1008.

What it represents: no securely documented flag survives from this long, fragmented, pre-heraldic period; local principalities used dynastic and ecclesiastical emblems rather than fixed territorial banners. Shown here honestly blank rather than invented.

Kingdoms of Colchis and Iberia

Who & why: the ancient kingdom of Colchis, on the eastern Black Sea coast, is the setting of the Greek myth of Jason and the Golden Fleece and one of the earliest recorded polities on Georgian soil, flourishing from roughly the 6th century BCE. To its east and south, the kingdom of Iberia (Kartli) emerges around the 4th–3rd century BCE, later absorbing Colchis's territory and becoming the dominant local power, contested between the Roman and Parthian, then Byzantine and Sasanian Persian, spheres of influence.

What it represents: no flag or fixed heraldic banner survives from this pre-heraldic antiquity; these kingdoms are known through Greek and Roman written sources, coinage, and archaeology rather than surviving vexillology. Shown here honestly blank rather than invented.

Diauehi and Early Kartvelian Tribal Kingdoms

Who & why: the earliest polity associated with Kartvelian-speaking peoples known to history is not recorded by Georgians themselves but by their neighbors: Diauehi, a highland kingdom in what is now northeastern Turkey and southwestern Georgia, appears in Assyrian sources as early as the 12th century BCE and repeatedly in the Kingdom of Urartu's own royal inscriptions through the 9th and 8th centuries BCE, which describe campaigns against it and tribute extracted from it. Many scholars regard Diauehi, and the related tribal confederation Colcha named in the same Urartian texts, as ancestral to the later, better-known kingdoms of Colchis and Iberia that follow directly in this timeline. Bronze Age archaeological cultures in the wider Caucasus — walled settlements, elaborate kurgan burials, and early metalworking — corroborate a settled, organized society here well before Greek writers ever mention Colchis by name.

What it represents: no flag or heraldic symbol of any kind survives from this pre-heraldic Bronze and early Iron Age era; Diauehi is known only through the inscriptions of its rivals and through archaeology. Shown here honestly blank rather than invented.

World context: this span opens around the traditional date of the Trojan War and the wider Bronze Age Collapse convulsing the eastern Mediterranean, runs through the rise of the Assyrian Empire and its highland rival Urartu (the very powers whose own inscriptions preserve Diauehi's name), and closes as Greek colonists are first establishing trading posts on the Black Sea coast that will soon give the world the myth of Jason, the Argonauts, and the Golden Fleece — set, not coincidentally, in Colchis, Diauehi's own likely successor.