The city of Tbilisi on the Kura River is founded by king Vakhtang I of Iberia.
Its location gives it control of the trade routes between western and eastern Transcaucasia.
According to an old legend, the present-day territory of Tbilisi was covered by forests as late as 458.
One widely accepted variant of the legend of Tbilisi's founding states that King Vakhtang went hunting in the heavily wooded region with a falcon (sometimes the falcon is replaced with either a hawk or other small birds of prey in the legend).
The King's falcon allegedly caught or injured a pheasant during the hunt, after which both birds fell into a nearby hot spring and died from burns.
King Vakhtang became so impressed with the hot springs that he decided to cut down the forest and build a city on the location.
The name Tbilisi derives from the Old Georgian word "Tpili", meaning warm.
The name 'Tbili' or 'Tbilisi' ('warm location') was therefore given to the city because of the area's numerous sulfuric hot springs that came out of the ground.
Additionally, archaeological studies of the region have revealed that the territory of Tbilisi had at least some human presence as early as the fourth millennium BCE.
