Azerbaijani people : Ask Biography

Home | Ethnic Group | Azerbaijani people

The Azerbaijanis are a Turkic people living mainly in northwestern Iran and the Republic of Azerbaijan, as well as in the neighbourhood states, Georgia, Russia (Dagestan) and formerly Armenia. Commonly referred to as Azeris (آذری - Azərilər) or Azerbaijani Turks ( ), they also live in a wider area from the Caucasus to the Iranian plateau. The Azeris are predominantly Shia Muslim and have a various other heritages in addition of indigenous Caucasians.

Despite living on two sides of an international border since the treaties of Gulistan (1813) and Turkmenchay (1828), after which Iran lost its then northern territories to Russia, the Azeris form a single ethnic group. However, northerners and southerners differ due to nearly two centuries of separate social evolution in Russian/Soviet-influenced Azerbaijan and Iranian Azerbaijan. The Azerbaijani language unifies Azeris, and is mutually intelligible with Turkmen, Qashqai, Gagauz and Turkish (including the dialects spoken by the Iraqi Turkmen), all of which belong to Oghuz, or Western, group of Turkic languages.

Following the Russo-Persian Wars of 1813 and 1828, Qajar territories in the Caucasus were ceded to the Russian Empire and the treaties of Gulistan in 1813 and Turkmenchay in 1828 finalized the borders with Russia and Iran. The formation of Azerbaijan Democratic Republic in 1918 established the territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan.