page_title: Chechens on the Crimean Peninsula
section_title: Geography and diaspora
hierarchical_section_title: Chechens on the Crimean Peninsula / Geography and diaspora
caption_attribution_description: Нохчийн: ТӀерлойн-Мохк, Оьшни 1906 шо
context_page_description: Chechens, historically also known as Kisti and Durdzuks, are a Northeast Caucasian ethnic group of the Nakh peoples originating in the North Caucasus region primarily in Eastern Europe, located between the Black and Caspian Seas. They refer to themselves as Nokhchiy. Chechen and Ingush peoples are collectively known as the Vainakh since the 1930s and were known as Nakhchi prior. The majority of Chechens today live in the Chechen Republic, a subdivision of the Russian Federation. Chechens are Muslims.
  The isolated terrain of the Caucasus mountains and the strategic value outsiders have placed on the areas settled by Chechens has contributed much to the Chechen community ethos and helped shape its fiercely independent national character. Chechen society has traditionally been egalitarian and organized around many autonomous local clans, called teips.
context_section_description: The Chechens are mainly inhabitants of Chechnya. There are also significant Chechen populations in other subdivisions of Russia especially in Aukh (part of modern day Dagestan), Ingushetia and Moscow.
  Outside Russia, countries with significant diaspora populations are Kazakhstan, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Arab states (especially Jordan and Iraq): those in Iraq and Jordan are mainly descendants of families who had to leave Chechnya during the Caucasian War, which led to the annexation of Chechnya by the Russian Empire around 1850, while those in Kazakhstan originate from the ethnic cleansing of the entire population carried out by Joseph Stalin and Lavrentiy Beria in 1944. Tens of thousands of Chechen refugees settled in the European Union and elsewhere as the result of the recent Chechen Wars, especially in the wave of emigration to the West after 2002.
caption: Terloy-Moxk, Oshni village. 1906
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