Gardabani was a region in medieval 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...

, in the extreme southeast of the country, centered at the fortress of Khunani. This land roughly corresponds to a district lying south 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...

, west of the Mtkvari River.

The historical geography of Gardabani has caused a certain amount of confusion because medieval Georgian writers call both the Iberian land of Gardabani and the Albanian

Caucasian Albania

Albania is a name for the historical region of the eastern Caucasus, that existed on the territory of present-day republic of...

 principality of Gardman

Gardman

Gardman was one of the eight districts of the ancient province of Utik' in the Kingdom of Armenia and simultaneously, together with the district of Tush, an Armenian principality. In the Early Middle Ages a feudal state of Gardman emerged on the area of Caucasian Albania...

 by the name "Gardabani". Although these two regions were distinct, the homonymy may be due to an early occupation of both these territories by one ethnic group which left upon them its onomastic imprint.

In the 9th century, the Gardabanian nobility, particularly the clan of Donauri

Donauri

Donauri was a Georgian noble family to which belonged two ruling princes of the eastern province of Kakheti in the ninth century, and which gave origin to the latter-day noble family of Vachnadze, and, possibly, to that of Babadishvili ....

, dominated the eastern Georgian principality of Kakheti

Kakheti

Kakheti is a historical province in Eastern Georgia inhabited by Kakhetians who speak a local dialect of Georgian. It is bordered by the small mountainous province of Tusheti and the Greater Caucasus mountain range to the north, Russian Federation to the Northeast, Azerbaijan to the Southeast, and...

. For this reason, the 9th-century Kakheti is frequently referred to as "Gardabani" in the Georgian chronicles.