Ingushetia, officially the Republic of Ingushetia, is a republic of Russia located in the North Caucasus of Eurasia. The republic is part of the North Caucasian Federal District, and shares land borders with the country of Georgia to its south; and borders the Russian republics of North Ossetia–Alania and Chechnya to its west and east, respectively; while having a border with Stavropol Krai to its north.
Its capital is the town of Magas, while the largest city is Nazran. At 3,600 square km, in terms of area, the republic is the smallest of Russia's non-city federal subjects. It was established on 4 June 1992, after the Checheno-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was split in two. The republic is home to the indigenous Ingush, a people of Nakh ancestry. As of the 2021 Census, its population was estimated to be 509,541.
Largely due to the insurgency in the North Caucasus, Ingushetia remains one of the poorest and most unstable regions of Russia. Although the violence has died down in recent years, the insurgency in neighboring Chechnya has occasionally spilled into Ingushetia. According to Human Rights Watch in 2008, the republic has been destabilized by corruption, a number of high-profile crimes (including kidnapping and murder of civilians by government security forces), anti-government protests, attacks on soldiers and officers, Russian military excesses and a deteriorating human rights situation.
The name Ingushetia derives from the Russian name of the Ingush, which in turn is derived from the ancient village Angusht which was renamed Tarskoye and transferred to North Ossetia in 1944 after the deportation of 23 February 1944 ( "Operation Lentil"), and from the Georgian suffix -éti, which in total means "the place where the Ingush live". In the scientific literature, such names as: "Dzurdzuketi", "Kistetia", "Gligveti", "Gelia" and "Ingushiya" were also used to designate the region.
The Ingush, a nationality group indigenous to the Caucasus, mostly inhabit Ingushetia.