The province of Georgia (Persian: ولایت گرجستان, romanized: Velāyat-e Gorjestān) was a velayat (province) of Safavid Iran located in the area of present-day Georgia. The territory of the province was principally made up of the two subordinate eastern Georgian kingdoms of Kartli (Persian: کارتیل, romanized: Kartil) and Kakheti (Persian: کاخت, romanized: Kakhet) and, briefly, parts of the Principality of Samtskhe. The city of Tiflis (present-day Tbilisi) was its administrative center, the base of Safavid power in the province, and the seat of the rulers of Kartli. It also housed an important Safavid mint.

Safavid rule was mainly exercised through the approval or appointment of Georgian royals of the Bagrationi dynasty, at times converts to Shia Islam, as valis or khans. The eastern Georgian kingdoms had been subjected in the early 16th century, their rulers did not commonly convert. Tiflis was garrisoned by an Iranian force as early as Ismail I's reign, but relations between the Georgians and Safavids at the time mostly bore features of traditional vassalage. David XI (Davud Khan) was the first Safavid-appointed ruler, whose placement on the throne of Kartli in 1562 marked the start of nearly two and a half centuries of Iranian political control of eastern Georgia. During the same period, Iranian cultural influence dominated eastern Georgia.

From Tahmasp I's reign onwards (r. 1524–1576), the province was of great strategic importance. Many ethnic Georgians, generally from Kartli and Kakheti, rose to prominence in the Safavid state. These men held many of the highest positions in the civil and military administration, and many women entered the harem of the ruling class. By the late Safavid period, Georgians formed the mainstay of the Safavid army as well. The establishment of a large Georgian community in Iran proper dates back to the era of Safavid suzerainty in Georgia. As the province was a border entity, the valis of Georgia exercised more autonomy than other provinces of Safavid Iran; it could therefore be compared to the Arabestan Province (present-day Khuzestan Province), in the southwestern part of the empire. The province of Georgia was one of only four Safavid administrative territories where governors were consistently given the title of vali.

The first Safavid king (shah) Ismail I (r. 1501–1524) made the two kingdoms of Kartli and Kakheti his vassals as early as the 1510s. However, distracted by the task of establishing power in Iran, he did not tighten his hold on Georgia. He did raid Georgia a number of times, notably in 1518, which reconfirmed its status as a vassal, and in 1522, which resulted in Tiflis being garrisoned by a large Safavid force, but it was only under his son and successor Tahmasp I (r. 1524–1576) that a genuine province with Safavid-appointed rulers and governors began to take shape.

Tahmasp I undertook active steps to integrate Georgia into the Safavid domains. His four campaigns against Luarsab I of Kartli (1540–1541, 1546–1547, 1551, and 1553–1554) resulted in the re-occupation of Kartli, and a Safavid force was permanently stationed in Tiflis in 1551. A key outcome of these campaigns, apart from cementing Safavid hold in central-eastern Georgia, was that they brought to Iran proper (hereafter, simply "Iran") large numbers of Georgian prisoners of war. Beyond this, the sons of notable Georgians were frequently brought up at the shah's court as part of their tributary relationship with the Safavids. Beginning with the rule of Tahmasp I, Georgians would contribute greatly to the character of Safavid society and play a major role in its army and civil administration. This newly introduced ethnic element in the Safavid state would later be known in historiography as the "third force" alongside the two "founding elements" of the Safavid state, the Persians and the Turkomans.

In 1551 the Safavids gained the eastern part of the principality of Samtskhe. In 1555, during Tahmasp I's reign, the Peace of Amasya was signed with the neighboring Ottoman Empire. According to the terms of the treaty, eastern Georgia (including eastern Samtskhe) remained in Iranian hands while western Georgia (including western Samtskhe) ended up in Turkish hands. To speed up the process of integration into the empire, Tahmasp I imposed numerous Iranian political and social institutions such as bilingual Georgian–Persian farmâns, with the aim of establishing Persian as the official administrative language of Safavid Georgia. It was also during his reign that the first Georgian royal, a convert to Islam named Davud Khan (1569–1578) was put on the puppet throne in Tiflis. These events marked the start of almost 250 years of Iranian political dominance, with a few brief intermissions, over eastern Georgia.

In 1559, the first provincial vizier was assigned to the Azerbaijan province, with authority over the Georgia province as well as Shirvan including Shakki. These provincial viziers, also known as royal viziers, held the title of vazir-e koll, and received instructions from the central government located in the royal capital, instead of the local governor. Challenging the Safavid possession of eastern Caucasus, the Ottomans invaded the Georgian polities in a victorious campaign in 1578. As a result, the Safavids released the Georgian rebel ruler Shahnavaz Khan (Simon I of Kartli) from captivity to enable him to join the fight against the Ottomans. Though Simon achieved considerable success in Kartli, he was eventually captured by the Ottoman troops and died in captivity in Constantinople. In the period 1580–1581 the Safavid government sent a force accompanied by the tupchi-bashi Morad Khan to Georgia together with a number of cannon founders and the materials needed for casting cannon. By 1582 the Ottomans were in control of the eastern, Safavid portion of Samtskhe. Unable to resist the Ottoman invasion, Manuchar II Jaqeli of Samtskhe accepted the Iranian overlordship as well and moved to the Safavid court, where he lived until his death in 1614. By the Treaty of Constantinople in 1590, the Safavids lost control over Georgia as they were forced to recognize the whole province as an Ottoman possession.

At the beginning of the rule of Abbas I, the importance of Georgia and the influence of ethnic Georgians in the Safavid state increased and they came to be known as the "third force". Already by 1595 an ethnic Georgian from Kartli, Allahverdi Khan, originally surnamed Undiladze, had become one of the most powerful figures in the Safavid state. By the end of the 16th century, Georgians, forming an increasingly influential military faction, became a major threat to the Qizilbash, the traditional backbone of the Safavid army. At the same time, the Georgians at the Safavid court vied for influence among each other as well as against their Circassian counterparts. By and large, Abbas I's policy towards the province can be seen as a continuing the previous efforts to fully integrate the area in the Safavid Empire.