Abkhazia and South Ossetia are two regions that broke away from Georgia amidst the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. South Ossetian separatists declared independence during the South Ossetia war from January 1991 to June 1992 and were followed by Abkhaz separatists during the Abkhazia war from August 1992 to September 1993. Both separatist movements received support from Russia, but their declarations of independence gained only limited international recognition.
The Georgian government eschews the choronym "South Ossetia" ("South" relative to Russia's North Ossetia—collectively Ossetia) and instead refers to it as the "Tskhinvali Region" within Shida Kartli, although the eponymous capital city Tskhinvali is not controlled by Georgia.