Buryats

Summary

The Buryats are a Mongolic ethnic group indigenous to south‑eastern Siberia who speak the Buryat language. They form one of the two principal indigenous groups in Siberia, the other being the Yakuts. The majority of Buryats today live in their titular homeland, the Republic of Buryatia, a federal subject of Russia that extends along the southern fringe of the country and partially straddles Lake Baikal. Smaller Buryat populations also inhabit Ust-Orda Buryat Okrug and the Agin-Buryat Autonomous Okrug, which lie to the west and east of Buryatia respectively, as well as north‑eastern Mongolia and Inner Mongolia in China. Traditionally, they constituted the major northern subgroup of the Mongols.