Their pre-World War I population area was six times larger than that of present-day Armenia, including the eastern regions of Turkey, northern part of Iran, southern part of Georgia, Nagorno-Karabakh and Nakhichevan regions of Azerbaijan.
Between 2000 and 2006, more than 50 thematic supplements have been published, covering a wide array of topics, such as, Artsakh, Shoushi, Javakhk, The Armenian Genocide, the first Republic of Armenia, the 1700th anniversary of Armenian Christianity, Nakhichevan's Khachkars and so forth.
In early sources, the region was recorded as Zabakha in 785 BC owned by the king Argishti I of Urartu as a conquered land.
In the 12th–13th centuries it was the seat of the Akhaltsikhelis, dukes of Samtskhe, whose two most illustrious representatives were Shalva and Ivane Akhaltsikheli (of Akhaltsikhe).
The ancient tribes of Meskhi (or Moschi) and Mosiniks are the first known inhabitants of the area of modern Samtskhe-Javakheti region.
Zahra Baji daughter of Prince Ot'ar Shalikashvili of Samtskhe from Shalikashvili family of Georgia, m.
Merabishvili was born in the largely Georgian Roman Catholic village of Ude in what is now Samtskhe-Javakheti region in south Georgia, then a Soviet republic.