A municipality[a] is a subdivision of Georgia, consisting of a settlement or community (თემი temi), which enjoy local self-government.
In addition, new municipalities were formed to govern those settlements in the disputed entities of Abkhazia and South Ossetia that at the time remained under Georgia's control.
The former districts not under Georgia's effective sovereignty at the moment of the local government reform of 2006 were not transformed into municipalities.
Rather, the laws of Georgia include a notion that the final mode of subdivision and system of local self-government should be established after the restoration of the state jurisdiction over the occupied territories.
[4] The municipalities outside the two autonomous republics of Adjara and of Abkhazia and the capital city of Tbilisi are grouped, on a provisional basis, into nine regions: Guria, Imereti, Kakheti, Kvemo Kartli, Mtskheta-Mtianeti, Racha-Lechkhumi and Kvemo Svaneti, Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti, Samtskhe-Javakheti, and Shida Kartli.