Kareli is a town in Shida Kartli

Shida Kartli

Shida Kartli is a region in Georgia. It consists of the following districts: Gori, Kaspi, Kareli, Java, Khashuri.The northern part of the region, namely Java, and northern territories of Kareli and Gori, is controlled by the authorities of the self-proclaimed republic of South Ossetia since...

, 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...

, located on the right bank of the Mtkvari (Kura), 94 km west of the nation’s capital 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...

.

Kareli is first mentioned as a village in the 1715 documents. It was a property of the Tsitsishvili

Tsitsishvili

The Tsitsishvili is a Georgian noble family, with several notable members from the 15th century through the 20th.The Tsitsishvili family was a continuation of the medieval house of Panaskerteli, known in the province of Upper Kartli from the 12th century, who derived their name from the castle of...

 noble family. It acquired the status of a town under the Soviet

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 government in 1981. Since 1939, it has been an administrative center of the homonymous district

Kareli district, Georgia

Kareli is a district of Georgia, in the region of Shida Kartli. Some northern territories of the district is part of a self-proclaimed republic of South Ossetia and is not under control of Georgian government since 1992.- External links :* , Statoids.com...

. As of the 2002 census, Kareli had a population of approximately 7,200.

Kareli has a humid subtropical climate with moderately cold winters and long warm summers. The town’s environs are a home to several architectural monuments of medieval Georgia such as the churches of Zghuderi, Samtsevrisi, Ruisi, and Kintsvisi, and the fortress of Ortubani (Dzama).