TIFLIS (now TBILIsI), the capital of the Georgian S.S.R., and the chief town of Transcaucasia, situated on both banks of the Kura river, and on the railway linking the Black Sea and the Caspian, in 41' N., 44° 48' E. Pop. c. 405,900. Shut in by hills (1,50o to 2,400 ft.), it is sheltered in winter, but hot and stifling in summer, its average temperature ranging be tween F, in winter and F in summer. It manufactures bricks, tobacco, vegetable oils, soap, cognac, leather goods, furni ture, and has a saw-milling industry. In 1926-7, the Zemo-Avchal hydro-electric station, with a capacity of 13,000 kilowatts, was opened. There are municipal electricity, water, canal and tram way services, and the town is well built. The Sion cathedral traces its origin to the 5th century; other churches date from the 14th and 15th centuries, and the Armenian cathedral of Van from 1480. There are numerous educational institutions. The town is at the southern extremity of the Georgian Military road, which links it through the Dariel Gorge with Vladikavkaz. The Oriental markets and bazaars of the native quarter, where Persians, Kirghiz, Tatars and peoples from the east congregate, display the work of Georgian silversmiths, gunsmiths and sword-makers, carpets, dried fruits and silken goods are important items, and there is much exchange of Persian and Russian wares.
The Georgian annals put the foundation of Tiflis back to A.D.
379. (See GEORGIA, History.) In the latter half of the 5th century the chieftain of Georgia, Wakhtang Gurgaslan, transferred his capital from Mtskhet to the warm springs of Tiflis, where he erected several churches and a f ort. In 57o the Persians took the place and made it the residence of their rulers, but retained it only for ten years. Tiflis suffered successive plunderings and devastations at the hands of the Greeks in 626, of one of the com manders of the Caliph Omar in 731, of the Khazars in 828, and of the Arabs in 851. The Georgians, however, always managed to return to it and to keep it in their permanent possession. In the course of the succeeding centuries Tiflis fell repeatedly into Per sian hands; and it was plundered by the Mongol conqueror Tamer lane towards the end of the 14th century. Afterwards the Turks seized it several times, and towards the end of the 17th century the Lesghians attacked it. In 1795, when the shah of Persia plundered Tiflis, Russia sent troops to its protection, and the Russian occupation became permanent in 1799. One of the fulleft accounts of Tiflis is contained in Brosset's edition of the Descrip tion geographique de la Georgie (St. Petersburg, 1842), by the illegitimate son of Wakhtang VI., king of Karthli (i.e., Georgia), who became a pensioner of Peter the Great.