ABSTRACT
This chapter presents all basic political, economic, and demographic data on a territorial unit of the Russian Federation, Dagestan, which is located in the eastern part of the Caucasus Mountains, along the Caspian Sea. It borders Kalmykia, Stavropol Krai, Chechnya, Georgia, and Azerbaijan. Dagestan is the largest republic of the North Caucasus in terms of territory and population. Over 30 ethnic groups reside there. Dagestan trades with over 40 foreign countries, including Iran, Turkey, Norway, Great Britain, United Arab Emirates, China, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Georgia. The populace also has attachments to clan identities, as well as a sense of being part of a larger Dagestani and North Caucasus group. In the early 1990s Dagestan was noted for the relative peace among its ethnic groups the absence of the ominous nationalist tendencies that have threatened to reduce the North Caucasus to a region of unstable nation states.
