Preliminary results of a national census in Georgia revealed an estimated population of 3.9 million, representing an increase of 200,000 people from the previous survey conducted in 2014.
The data, which was published on Wednesday, did not give the full picture of Georgia’s demographics, as the final results will not be published until 2026.
As with the previous census, the census did not include demographic data from Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
At the time of Georgia’s independence from the Soviet Union, the country’s population, including Abkhazia and South Ossetia, stood at close to 5.5 million. When factoring out those two regions, the post-independence population was around 4.8 million.
Nonetheless, in the following decades, Georgia’s population has contracted, shaped by an outflow of emigrants and low birth rates. Even as many ethnic Georgians came back to the country from Russia and other countries in the former Soviet Union, the 2014 census showed a decrease of more than one million people from its height in 1991.
The 2024 data revealed a striking reversal of this trend.
The results showed a significant increase in the population of Tbilisi — from 1.1 million to 1.3 million, as well as in Adjara, home to Georgia’s second largest city, Batumi — from 333,000 to 401,000.
As the census data is still preliminary, it did not include specific demographic details, namely the breakdown of the population by ethnicity. In addition, the census counted all people living in Georgia, including foreigners and stateless people. It also did not specify a minimum threshold for non-citizens to be factored into the total.
Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, there has been a massive influx of Russians into Georgia — some 1.2 million entered the country, studies in 2023 found.
While many simply used Georgia as an entry point and opted to leave, Georgia estimated in late 2022 that around 100,000 had chosen to stay. The current statistics are unknown, but considering the overall increase in Georgia’s population, it is likely higher.
The 100,000 figure alone would represent an almost four-fold increase from the 2014 census, which found only 26,000 Russians in Georgia.
The bulk of the Russian emigre population live in Tbilisi and Batumi, where they have formed a significant minority. Some have estimated that as many as 30,000 live in Batumi, out of a total population of 180,000, representing around 17% of the city.
The influx is visibly noticeable in both cities, as Russian is often heard in the streets, and numerous shops and restaurants catering to Russians have sprung up.
For ease of reading, we choose not to use qualifiers such as ‘de facto’, ‘unrecognised’, or ‘partially recognised’ when discussing institutions or political positions within Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, and South Ossetia. This does not imply a position on their status.
Givi Silagadze
