Europe · High and late Middle Ages
Principality of Mingrelia
drawn on the map 1468–1578, 1612–1810
The Principality of Mingrelia (Georgian Samegrelo; Odishi) was a western Georgian principality ruled by the House of Dadiani (bearing the title eristavi and later mtavari, and at times the style Bediani).
- Shown on the map
- 1468–1578, 1612–1810 (2 periods)
- Peak area
- 13k km²
- Region
- Europe
Overview
The Principality of Mingrelia (Georgian Samegrelo; Odishi) was a western Georgian principality ruled by the House of Dadiani (bearing the title eristavi and later mtavari, and at times the style Bediani). It became effectively autonomous during the disintegration of the Georgian kingdom in the 15th century and formally a principality within the Kingdom of Imereti after 1490, though the Dadianis repeatedly fought for full independence and contested borders with Imereti, Abkhazia, and Guria. Under the ambitious Levan II Dadiani (r. 1611–1657) Mingrelia became the strongest power in western Georgia, allying with the Safavid vassal Rostom of Kartli. Mingrelia traded (and, notoriously, trafficked slaves) through Black Sea ports with the Ottomans. It came under Russian protection in 1803 and its autonomy was progressively curtailed until abolition in 1867.
Common questions
- What was the Principality of Mingrelia?
- The Principality of Mingrelia (Georgian Samegrelo; Odishi) was a western Georgian principality ruled by the House of Dadiani (bearing the title eristavi and later mtavari, and at times the style Bediani).
- When is the Principality of Mingrelia shown on the map?
- The border data draws the Principality of Mingrelia 1468–1578, 1612–1810, in 2 separate periods. The source samples borders at fixed dates, so a span can begin late or run on past the end.
- How large was the Principality of Mingrelia?
- At its greatest extent drawn on this map, the Principality of Mingrelia covered about 13,000 km². That is the largest area the border data gives it across the years it is drawn, not necessarily its greatest extent in history.
Sources
This compendium cites its sources once for the whole document rather than per territory. Its bibliography names the English Wikipedia articles for each beylik, khanate and principality as the primary basis, with Encyclopædia Britannica, the World History Encyclopedia, museum and academic sources (the Baku Presidential Library on the Shirvanshahs, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum on the Armenian Genocide) and the historiography of early Ottoman state formation (Wittek, Lindner, Kafadar, Lowry). The article this entry is anchored on:
- Wikipedia — Principality of Mingrelia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Mingrelia
This entry was last updated .
This entry was researched and drafted with AI from the sources above, and has not been reviewed by a historian. How entries are made
Text available under CC BY-SA 4.0: reuse it with a credit to The World Through Time and a link to this page. Passages drawing on the Wikipedia articles listed above are also licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 by their contributors.
Border geometry for the map itself comes from Cliopatria v0.12 (Seshat Global History Databank, CC-BY-4.0).
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