Tblisi, Georgia
This week our tour around the world stops over the city of Tbilisi, formerly Tiflis, the capital and largest city of Georgia. The city, situated on the Kura River in a valley sheltered by the Caucasus Mountains, is a major economic, transport, and cultural centre. Among the principal goods manufactured here are processed food, machinery, textiles, rail equipment, printed materials, leather goods, and wine. Tbilisi is located at the southern end of the Georgian Military Road and is served by the Transcaucasian Railway. It is noted for its ancient churches, including the 5th-century Cathedral of Zion and the 6th-century St David's monastery. Tbilisi is the seat of a university (1918) and the Georgian Academy of Sciences, and has several theatres and museums. Although settlements have existed on the site since 4000 bc, Tbilisi was not mentioned until the 4th century. In the 5th century it became the capital of Iberia, a kingdom of eastern Georgia. The city suffered frequently during succeeding centuries from raids by Byzantines, Arabs, Persians, Mongols, Seljuk Turks, and tribes of the region of Caucasia. It was, however, the capital of an independent Georgian state in the 12th and 13th centuries. The last great raid occurred in 1795, when Persian troops invaded and sacked the city. Tbilisi came under Russian rule in 1801. It was made the capital of the newly created Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR) in 1936, and in 1991 it became the capital of an independent Georgia. More information is available on Wikipedia
The aim of these images acquired by the Landsat family, with a time window (before/after) of 27 years, is to show how Tblisi has changed since 1989. The skyline of the city has developed with new areas constructed and new infrastructure; such as the area where the airport is located. Another difference in these images is relative to the Tbilisi Reservoir (or Lake), we can see in the image acquired in 2016 that the reservoir of water has increased, especially in the north part. Another aim of these images is to promote the opportunity to download Landsat data through the ESA portals (or third party mission), where images captured every day are made available in near real time to the users and the scientific community. Landsat full resolution data products are freely available for immediate download at:  View Landsat 4 TM high resolution image (JPG 10.5 MB) View Landsat 8 OLI high resolution image (JPG 9.3 MB)
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