Factbox: Key facts about former Soviet Georgia

(Reuters) - Georgia elects a new president on Sunday in a vote that will end Mikheil Saakashvili's decade-long rule. Here are some facts about the country. GEOGRAPHY: Georgia, a former Soviet republic, is flanked by Russia to the north, Azerbaijan and Armenia to the east and south, and Turkey to the southwest. Its capital is Tbilisi. POPULATION: 4.5 million. There are 3.5 million eligible voters. RELIGION: Most of the population is Orthodox Christian. SEPARATIST REGIONS: Two regions of Georgia - Abkhazia and South Ossetia - broke away from central control during wars in the 1990s. Russia recognized them as independent after a five-day war over South Ossetia in August 2008, but only Venezuela, Nicaragua and two tiny Pacific Ocean islands followed suit. The rest of the international community still considers them part of Georgia. ECONOMY: Gross domestic product grew by 2.4 percent year-on-year in the first quarter and by 1.5 percent in the second quarter of 2013, down from 6.7 percent and 8.2 percent in the same periods last year. Georgia's finance minister said last month that GDP growth in 2013 would be lower than an initial forecast of 6 percent. International financial institutions and rating agencies have reduced their growth projections to 3-4 percent this year. Foreign Direct Investment came in at $458.6 million in the first half of 2013, down from $478.9 million in the same period last year. The government expects it to reach $1 billion or a little more than that for the full year. Consumer prices fell 0.4 percent year-on-year in August after falling by 0.2 percent year-on-year in July. In month-on-month terms, consumer prices did not change in August. The government is targeting inflation of 3.0-3.5 percent in 2013, compared with deflation of 1.4 percent in 2012. (Reporting by Margarita Antidze; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)