About the Republic of Dagestan:
- It is a province of Russia, within the Russian Federation.
- It is one of 22 republics that are part of Russia.
- Dagestan, which translates as "land of the mountains", is situated in the eastern part of the North Caucasus.
- Borders:
- Dagestan has Georgia and Chechnya to the west and Azerbaijan to the south.
- To its east is the Caspian Sea.
- Population: About 3.2 million.
- Religion: The majority of Dagestanis are Sunni Muslims.
- Capital:
- The capital, Makhachkala, is located on Dagestan's Caspian Sea coast.
- Makhachkala was conquered by the Russian Imperial Army in the 19th century. It was a major pre-revolutionary trading port.
- Ethnicity:
- It is Russia's most ethnically and linguistically varied region and home to at least 40 different ethnicities. More than 30 languages are spoken here.
- It is sometimes known as the Mountain of Languages or Mountain of Nationalities, with some national groups occupying no more than one or two villages.
- The Avars are the largest ethnicity. They form about a fifth of the population in the province.
- After the Avars, there is a sizeable presence of Dargins, Kumyks, and Lezgins.
- About 10 percent of the population is ethnically Russian.
- For almost a decade until 2017, Russian security forces were battling an armed insurgency conducted by an array of Islamist militant groups in Dagestan, neighbouring Chechnya, and Ingushetia.
- In present times, Dagestan is a conduit for major oil and gas pipelines going from the Caspian Sea to the Russian heartland. Dagestan itself has oil and gas reserves.
