Gachiani was a historical city and district in Lower Iberia

Caucasian Iberia

Iberia , also known as Iveria , was a name given by the ancient Greeks and Romans to the ancient Georgian kingdom of Kartli , corresponding roughly to the eastern and southern parts of the present day Georgia...

/Kvemo Kartli

Kvemo Kartli

Kvemo Kartli is a historic province and current administrative region in southeastern Georgia. The city of Rustavi is a regional capital. The population is mixed between Azeris and Georgians .The current governor is Davit Kirkitadze.- External links :* *...

 in southeast Georgia

Georgia (country)

Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...

. Its exact location and boundaries remain unclear. The medieval tradition of Leonti Mroveli

Leonti Mroveli

Leonti Mroveli was the 11th-century Georgian chronicler, presumably an ecclesiastic. Mroveli is not his last name, but the adjective for the diocese of Ruisi, whose bishop he probably was...

 ascribes the foundation of Gachiani to an eponymous mythic lord, Gachios, son of Kartlos

Kartlos

Kartlos or K'art'los was the legendary establisher and eponymous father of Georgia, and the mythic ancestor of Georgians, namely its nucleus Kartli...

. The 10th-century Armenia

Armenia

Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...

n historian Ukhtanes of Sebastia

Ukhtanes of Sebastia

Ukhtanes of Sebastia was an Armenian historian and prelate.Educated at the Monastery of Narek under the tutelage of its founder Anania, he eventually attained to the bishopric of Sebastia and probably also of Urha...

 places Gachiani (Gajenaget) in what he refers to as the Plain of Georgians (Vrac' Dašt) and considers it to be a later name of the earlier town of Tsurtavi (C'urtaw). On the other hand, the early 18th-century Georgian scholar Prince Vakhushti locates Gachiani on the right bank of the river Ktsia.

The land of Gachiani was one of the marchlands between ancient Iberia (Georgia) and Armenia and changed its masters more than once in the course of history. It formed part of the Iberian duchy

Eristavi

Eristavi was a Georgian feudal office, roughly equivalent to the Byzantine strategos and normally translated into English as "duke". In the Georgian aristocratic hierarchy, it was the title of the third rank of prince and governor of a large province...

 of Samsvhilde in the 4th-3rd century BC, but its southwest portion was annexed to the Armeno-Georgian principality of Gogarene in the 4th century, and then briefly fell under the Armenian Bagratid control in 888 and 914/8. Its later history is essentially the same as that of Samshvilde and the district southwest of Tbilisi

Tbilisi

Tbilisi is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Mt'k'vari River. The name is derived from an early Georgian form T'pilisi and it was officially known as Tiflis until 1936...

 in general. Currently, Gachiani is a name of the predominantly Azerbaijani

Azerbaijani people

The Azerbaijanis are a Turkic-speaking people living mainly in northwestern Iran and the Republic of Azerbaijan, as well as in the neighbourhood states, Georgia, Russia and formerly Armenia. Commonly referred to as Azeris or Azerbaijani Turks , they also live in a wider area from the Caucasus to...

-populated village in Georgia’s Gardabani district

Gardabani

Gardabani is a town in the Georgian region of Kvemo Kartli, and the centre of the Garbabani district, located 39 km south of Georgia's capital Tbilisi.As of 2002, its population was 19,900 people. The town is roughly 70% Azeri-populated...

.