Template:Wp-Colchis

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In Greco-Roman geography, Colchis was an exonym for the Georgian polity of Egrisi^[1] located on the coast of the Black Sea, centered in present-day western Georgia.

It has been described in modern scholarship as "the earliest Georgian formation", which, along with the Kingdom of Iberia, would later contribute significantly to the development of the Kingdom of Georgia and the Georgian nation.

Colchis is known in Greek mythology as the destination of the Argonauts, as well as the home to Medea and the Golden Fleece. It was also described as a land rich with gold, iron, timber and honey that would export its resources mostly to ancient Hellenic city-states.

Colchis is generally believed to have been populated by early Kartvelian-speaking tribes ancestral to the contemporary western Georgians, namely Svans and Zans. According to David Marshall Lang: "one of the most important elements in the modern Georgian nation, the Colchians were probably established in the Caucasus by the Middle Bronze Age."

Colchis likely had a diverse population. According to Greek and Roman sources, between 70 and 300 languages were spoken in Dioscourias (modern Sukhumi) alone.

According to Rayfield, the first mention of Colchis is during the reign of the Assyrian king Tukulti-Ninurta I (1245–1209 BC) when he mentions "40 kings by the Upper[Black] Sea".

Abkhaz, Scythian, Anatolian, and Greek names have all been identified in Colchis. Any of these groups could have constituted the ruling class.

Its geography is mostly assigned to what is now the western part of Georgia and encompasses the present-day Georgian provinces of Samegrelo, Imereti, Guria, Adjara, Abkhazia, Svaneti, Racha; modern Russia's Sochi and Tuapse districts; and present-day Turkey’s Artvin, Rize, and Trabzon provinces.