The Circassians, also known as the Cherkess or the Adyghe (Adyghe and Kabardian: Адыгэхэр, romanized: Adygəxər, IPA: [aːdɘɣəxə́r]), are a Northwest Caucasian ethnic group native to Circassia, a region and former country in the North Caucasus.
As a consequence of the Circassian genocide, which was perpetrated by the Russian Empire during the 19th-century Russo-Circassian War, most of Circassians were exiled from their homeland and consequently began living in what was then the Ottoman Empire, i.e., modern-day Turkey, Southeastern Europe and the Middle East. In the early 1990s, the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization estimated that there are as many as 3.7 million Circassians in diaspora in over 50 countries.
