Castle and Fortress in Georgia Country

How This Regional Inventory Works

The tables are a corrected English rendering of the Georgian-language list of fortifications, checked against Georgia’s public cultural-heritage portal, National Library catalog records, and official site records. The portal catalogs both individual monuments and larger complexes, so it does not support one simple, permanent national total.

What counts as a castle or fortress here?

The inventory keeps the source’s broad approach. It includes castles, citadels, fortress walls, fortified towns, fortified residences, and some complexes whose defensive and religious functions overlap. That scope explains why entries such as Gremi, Batonis Tsikhe, and Samshvilde sit beside more conventional military fortresses.

This is not a complete register of every tower, wall, archaeological enclosure, or fortified village in Georgia. A different definition—or a newer heritage survey—will produce a different total.

How to read the construction dates

Many Georgian fortifications developed in several building phases. A date may refer to the earliest known occupation, the surviving walls, a major rebuilding, or the first written record rather than one moment of construction. Broad labels such as “Middle Ages” and “feudal period” are retained where the source does not support a narrower date; “Not stated” is used instead of guessing.

Regional totals in the cleaned inventory

The 158-entry total is a transparent count of the rows below. Kojori is placed under Tbilisi, Bochorma under Mtskheta-Mtianeti, and Jaqi Castle is not counted because its probable site lies in modern Turkey.

Territorial and access context

The list follows Georgia’s internationally recognized borders. Abkhazia and the Tskhinvali region/South Ossetia are outside the Georgian government’s de facto control, and international access remains restricted; several Shida Kartli entries are in or near the Tskhinvali region. Their inclusion is geographic and historical, not a statement that ordinary visitor access is available.

UNESCO status also requires care. Ananuri and the Vardzia-Khertvisi landscape appear on Georgia’s World Heritage Tentative List, but tentative-list placement is not the same as inscription on the World Heritage List.

Tbilisi

Tbilisi contains four entries in this inventory. Narikala preserves the capital’s best-known defensive site, Tabori survives mainly as foundations, and Kojori is placed here according to its present-day administrative location.

Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia

Four sites are retained under the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia. Their names and source locations are included for geographic completeness, but current access and on-site conditions should not be inferred from this historical table.

Autonomous Republic of Adjara

Adjara’s 12 entries include early Black Sea defenses such as Petra and Gonio-Apsaros Fortress, along with medieval mountain fortifications in Keda and Khulo. Gonio’s surviving complex has Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman layers rather than a single construction date.

Guria Region

Guria contributes four entries. The dating is uneven: Askana is assigned an early date in the source inventory, while Bukistsikhe and Likhauri are left undated rather than given unsupported construction centuries.

Imereti Region

Imereti has 16 entries spanning antiquity, late antiquity, the medieval period, and the 18th century. The table retains broad source labels where a fortification’s exact construction history remains unclear.

Kakheti Region

Kakheti has 19 entries in the corrected regional count. They range from early fortified centers such as Ujarma and Khornabuji to royal residences and 18th-century defensive walls. Bochorma is listed later under Mtskheta-Mtianeti because it stands in modern Tianeti Municipality.

Mtskheta-Mtianeti Region

This table contains three entries, including Ananuri Fortress and Bochorma. It is plainly not an exhaustive inventory of the region’s defensive heritage; it preserves the established list while correcting Bochorma’s modern regional placement.

Racha-Lechkhumi and Kvemo Svaneti Region

Three entries are retained for Racha-Lechkhumi and Kvemo Svaneti, all placed in Ambrolauri Municipality. The source dates are broad and should not be read as single-phase construction histories.

Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti Region

Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti has 14 entries. The consulted regional inventory does not provide defensible construction dates for these rows, so the table preserves the names and municipalities without supplying invented centuries.

Samtskhe-Javakheti Region

Samtskhe-Javakheti contributes 20 entries within modern Georgia, including Rabati or Akhaltsikhe Castle, Tmogvi, and Khertvisi. The old source row for Jaqi Castle is excluded from the table because its probable location is now in Turkey, although it remains important to the history of the Jaqeli dynasty.

Kvemo Kartli Region

Kvemo Kartli has 16 entries after Kojori is placed under Tbilisi. The region’s table includes natural strongholds such as Birtvisi, fortified urban sites such as Samshvilde, and later defensive complexes such as Kolagiri and Khuluti.

Shida Kartli Region

Shida Kartli has 43 entries, the largest table in this inventory. It includes major strongholds such as Gori and Surami, smaller family castles, and sites in areas now affected by the Tskhinvali region/South Ossetia conflict.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Did We Learn Today?

Georgia’s fortifications form a larger and less tidy record than one headline number suggests. This cleaned regional inventory contains 158 entries within the country’s internationally recognized borders, but the total is a table count rather than an official ceiling, and its broad or missing dates should be read as catalog labels rather than precise construction years.

Sources & Data Notes

The regional inventory was checked against the National Agency for Cultural Heritage Preservation of Georgia’s Cultural Heritage GIS portal, Georgian Wikipedia’s List of Fortifications in Georgia, National Parliamentary Library of Georgia catalog records for the monument volumes cited by that list, Georgian National Tourism Administration site records, UNESCO World Heritage Centre entries, and 2026 Council of Europe and European Union material for territorial context. Dates are presented as source ranges or broad periods; “Not stated” means no defensible date was found in the consulted inventory, and 158 is a row count rather than an official national total. This article was prepared and editorially reviewed by Z.K. Atlas, who completed the final factual checks and publication approval. AI tools may have assisted during the editorial process, including with language refinement and the creation or editing of visual materials.