Abkhazia surpasses Russia in cars per capita: is it good or bad?

How many cars are there in Abkhazia? Abkhazia has 342 cars per 1,000 people, compared with 315 per 1,000 in Russia.

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2025 December 24 . 7:35 AM

1 min read

As we can see in the image there are buildings, traffic signals, windows, few people here and... — As we can see in the image there are buildings, traffic signals, windows, few people here and there, cars and sky.

Abkhazia surpasses Russia in cars per capita: is it good or bad?

Abkhazia, a small region with a population of 241,000, now has more cars per person than Russia. Over 82,000 vehicles are registered there, a sharp rise from just 41,000 before the 1992-93 war. The surge in traffic has created persistent congestion, with roads struggling to cope.

Before the conflict in the early 1990s, Abkhazia had around 530,000 residents and far fewer cars. Since then, the population has dropped, but vehicle numbers have soared. Today, the region boasts 342 cars per 1,000 people—higher than Russia’s 315.

The roads, however, have not kept up. No new ones have been built since the Soviet Union collapsed, leaving the existing network overwhelmed. Traffic jams now occur year-round, worsening during peak times. Visitors add to the strain. In the first ten months of 2025 alone, over 2 million cars entered from Russia. On busy summer days, up to 12,700 vehicles can cross the border in 24 hours. Many of these cars carry foreign, mostly Russian, licence plates. Despite the influx, no official data tracks which car brands dominate or how import trends have shifted in recent years.

Abkhazia’s roads, unchanged for decades, now face severe pressure from rising car numbers. The combination of local registrations and foreign vehicles has turned congestion into a daily problem. Without infrastructure updates, the situation is unlikely to improve soon.