Kazakhs
Қазақтар Qazaqtar قازاقتار | |
|---|---|
Map of the Kazakh people around the world | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Kazakhstan | 14,456,709 (2025) |
| China | 1,562,518 (2020) |
| Uzbekistan | 821,172 (2021) |
| Russia | 591,970 (2021) |
| Mongolia | 120,999 (2020) |
| Turkey | 44,445 (2024) |
| Kyrgyzstan | 28,244 (2022) |
| United States | 21,913 (2022) |
| Turkmenistan | 11,825 (2022) |
| Iran | 10,000 (2024) |
| Canada | 5,455 (2021) |
| Czech Republic | 5,639 (2017) |
| Ukraine | 5,526 (2001) |
| United Kingdom | 5,432 (2011) |
| United Arab Emirates | 5,000 (2015) |
| Portugal | 3,000 (2017) |
| Australia | 2,430 (2023) |
| Italy | 1,924 (2022) |
| Austria | 1,685 |
| Belarus | 1,355 (2009) |
| Germany | 1,000 (2016) |
| Brazil | 732 (2024) |
| Afghanistan | 200 (2021) |
| Philippines | 178–215 (2022) |
| Languages | |
| Kazakh | |
| Religion | |
| Predominantly Islam | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Other Turkic peoples (particularly Karakalpaks, Nogais and Kyrgyz) | |
The Kazakhs are a Turkic ethnic group native to Central Asia and Eastern Europe. They share a common culture, language and history that is closely related to those of other Turkic peoples. The majority of ethnic Kazakhs live in their transcontinental nation state of Kazakhstan.
Ethnic Kazakh communities are present in Kazakhstan's border regions in Russia, Kyrgyzstan, northern Uzbekistan, northwestern China (Xinjiang), western Mongolia (Bayan-Ölgii), and northern Iran (Golestan). The Kazakhs arose from the merging of various medieval tribes of Turkic and Turkified Mongolic origin in the 15th century.
Kazakh identity was shaped following the foundation of the Kazakh Khanate between 1456 and 1465, when following the disintegration of the Turkified state of Golden Horde, several tribes under the rule of the sultans Janibek and Kerei departed from the Khanate of Abu'l-Khayr Khan in hopes of forming a powerful khanate of their own.
The term Kazakh is used to refer to ethnic Kazakhs, while the term Kazakhstani refers to all citizens of Kazakhstan, regardless of ethnicity.