The 19,500 Rutul live in the Caucasus region of what is now southern Russia. They inhabit primarily the valleys of the Samur River and its tributaries in the southern part of Dagestan. The traditional territory of the Rutul lies between mountain ranges that are hard to cross, and it is marked by the gorges of torrential rivers. The winters are cold, and the summers are moderately cool with fog and rain. The mountain slopes are covered with grassy vegetation and are good summer pasture for livestock.
Snow covers much of the mountains year round.
The Rutul speak Rutuly, which belongs to the Dagestanian group of the Northeast Caucasian language family. Knowledge of Russian is widespread, and some of the older people also speak Azerbaijani. The Arabic script was used for Rutuly until the 1930's. However, Rutuly has not been a written language throughout the Soviet period. Today, the Rutul use Azerbaijani, Russian, and Lezgian for written communication.