Dagestan

Dagestan is a federal subject of the Russian Federation in the North Caucasus region. Dagestan has a population of nearly 3 million, and its people are known as Dagestani. Its capital city is Makhachkala.

 Etymology 
The name comes from two combined Turkic and Persian words, dag which means mountain in the Turkic languages, and stan which means land in the Persian language. Therefore, the literal translation of Dagestan is Land of the Mountains.

 People 
Dagestan has the status of "republic" in Russia and has its own constitution and official languages. Republics in Russia are the home of its ethnic minorities (those who are not Russians), and usually one or two nationalities have a majority of the population in each republic. But in Dagestan, there are over 30 different nationalities (the largest of which are the Avar, Dargwa, Lak, Lezgian, Rutulians, Tabasaran), and none of these form a majority. This is because the mountains in the region make it hard for people to move around. These people speak 30 different languages, but use Russian as their lingua franca to communicate between each other.

Most people of Dagestan are Muslim and belong to the Shafi`i school of Sunni Islam.

 Famous people 
 Rasul Gamzatov
 Imam Shamil
 Shaykh Said afandi al-Chirkawi
 Khabib Abdulmanapovich Nurmagomedov
 Islam Ramazanovich Makhachev

 Sources 
 Islam in Dagestan
 Official website of Dagestani government 

References