Forming the easternmost area of the Pontic Alps, Chaldia was bounded to the north by the Black Sea, to the east by Lazica, the westernmost part of Caucasian Iberia, to the south by Erzinjan,Erzurum and what the East Romans or Byzantines called Armenia Minor, and to the west by the western half of Pontus.
The province of Chaldia effectively became an autonomous semi-hereditary domain of the Gabrades as his father, Theodore Gabras, preceded him as governor.