(TBILISI) - The former Soviet republic of Georgia which was placed was under a state of emergency Thursday has been led since 2004 by pro-Western president Mikheil Saakashvili and aspires to join the European Union and NATO.

BASIC FACTS:

- GEOGRAPHY: A mountainous country on the east coast of the Black Sea, Georgia has borders with Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkey to the south and Russia to the north. Its border with Russia includes an 80-kilometer (50-mile) stretch with war-torn Chechnya.

Area 69,700 square kilometers (26,911 square miles).

Georgia's territory includes two republics on Russia's border that have broken away from central Georgian control: Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

- POPULATION: 4.7 million, including 1.2 million in the capital Tbilisi.

- RELIGION: Mostly Orthodox Christian, with Muslim and Catholic minorities.

- HISTORY: The Christian kingdom of Georgia, which reached its height in the early 13th century, was divided up by the Persian and Ottoman empires before being annexed by Russia in 1801. Having proclaimed its independence in 1918, Georgia was invaded in 1921 by the Red Army of the nascent Soviet Union.

The birthplace of the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, Georgia formally became part of the Soviet Union in 1936.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, on March 31, 1991, 90 percent of the population voted for independence.

Saakashvili, a US-trained lawyer, swept to the presidency in elections on January 4, 2004, after leading the peaceful Rose Revolution to oust veteran leader Eduard Shevardnadze.

Since independence, Georgia has faced chronic instability, due in particular to separatist conflicts and the spilling over of the conflict in Chechnya.

Russian troops are deployed as peacekeepers in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, but Georgia accuses them of aiding the separatist rebels.

- POLITICS: Republic, with president elected for a five-year term and a multi-party political system.

The 235-seat parliament is elected for five year terms.

- ECONOMY: Largely based on farming, with Russia the main export market, although this has been closed since sanctions were imposed last year. Georgia is also mostly dependent on Russia for supplies of gas, which have increased sharply in price since 2006. The construction of the US-sponsored Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline for transporting Caspian oil to Western markets is expected to bring much-needed revenues.

GDP per capita: 1,300 dollars in 2005 (World Bank)

ARMED FORCES: 11,320 in all (IISS).

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