Kazakh

A pastoral Kyrgyz people of Kazakhstan. Kazakhs also live in China (Xinjiang, Gansu, and Qinghai), Mongolia, and Afghanistan. There are 5–7 million speakers of Kazakh, a Turkic language belonging to the Altaic family. They are predominantly Sunni Muslim, although pre-Islamic customs have survived.

Kazakhs are descendants of nomadic herdspeople from the grasslands of central Asia, who by the 15th century were an identifiable nation in their present homeland, organized into three main groups known as hordes.

The original division into three hordes formed the Great Zhuz of the east towards the Tien Shan Mountains, the Middle Zhuz of central Kazakhstan, and the Little Zhuz of the west. There is also a fourth group, the Bukey Zhuz of the Volga region.