Despite the problems of urbanisation of Georgia, and especially of Tbilisi during the Soviet period, there were positive outcomes as well. Among them, we consider the most important to be the role Tbilisi played in forming a single Georgia and the Georgian nation.

The fact that since medieval times up to the 19 ^th century (and, by inertia, for a certain period in the 20^th century) the term "city" and the popular name of Tbilisi (both "kalaki" - in Georgian) were the same, means that Tbilisi was of special significamce for the Georgians. In the language of a Georgian sub-ethnic group - Megrelian - Tbilisi is called "Karti" (the Abkhazian language also uses the same pronunciation of the name ofd Tbilisi, probably under influence of Megrelian). This indicates that the city is identified with the central province of Georgia "Kartli", from which the eleventh century medieval nation-state "Sakartvelo" derived its name. "Sakartvelo" is the vernacular pronunciation of the name of the contemporary state of Georgia.

All sub-ethnic groups of the Georgians considered Tbilisi as the only political and cultural centre of all-Georgia and not of a single province. Whoever ruled Tbilisi was recognized as the legal ruler of all Georgia. From a historical-geographical viewpoint Tbilisi is actually on the border of two major provinces of East Georgia - Kartli and Kakheti (but more within Kartli). Its central position in the Southern Caucasus is even more apparent. Tbilisi has served as regional centre throughout the last several centuries regardless of who was in power - Perian Shah, Russian Emperor, or the General Secretaries of ACP(B), (i.e. the All-Union Communist Party, Boloshevik). Within the Russian Empire Tbilisi served as the centre of the entire Caucasus and was the seat of the viceroy. Tbilisi ceased to perform the formal role of the regional centre in 1936 when the TSFSR (Transcaucasian Soviet federal Socialist Republic) with its capital in Tbilisi was dissolved.

Even before the declaration of independence of the Georgian Democratic Republic (1918) the Georgian intellectual elite began to concentrate in Tbilisi. Already by the early 20 ^th century it had drawn the cultural elite of Kutaisi, the centre of another Georgian gubernia. Due to migration from the West Georgian provinces by the beginning of the 1920s more than half of Tbilisi'ds ethnic Georgian population was from these provinces. After Tbilisi was declared the capital of independent Georgia, the political elite were also draw from the western provinces to Tbilisi. Notably, the Tbilisi inteligentsia and the newly migrated intellegentsia from western Georgia never engaged in serious conflicts on a sub-ethnic level because these elites always regarded of paramount interest not the regional, but the all-georgian issues.

During the Soviet period the migration of the ethnic Georgian population to Tbilisi continued to increase. According to the 1926 Population Census 6% (112 thousand) of all ethnic Georgians lived in Tbilisi. The 1989 Population Census shows that 26% (824 thousand) of all ethnic Georgians lived in Tbilisi. A more than sevenfold increase in ethnic Georgian population of Tbilisi during 63 years cannot even theoretically be attributed to natural growth. This growth is the result of population migration.

Currently Tbilisi is more populated than any single province of Georgia, and "Tbiliseli" (Tbilisi dweller) has become a supre-regional term which embraces representatives of all georgian sub-ethnic groups and ethnic non-Georgians as well. Tbilisi played and still plays the role of "melting pot" of the Georgian nation.