Chuvashia, officially known as Chuvash Republic — Chuvashia, is a republic of Russia located in Eastern Europe. It is the homeland of the Chuvash people. The republic's capital city is the city of Cheboksary. As of the 2010 Census, its population was 1,251,619.
Geography
The Chuvash Republic is located in the center of European Russia, in the heart of the Volga-Vyatka economic region, mostly to the west of the Volga River, in the Volga Upland. It borders with the Nizhny Novgorod Oblast in the west, Mari El Republic in the north, the Republic of Tatarstan in the east and southeast, Republic of Mordovia in the southwest, and the Ulyanovsk Oblast in the south. There are over two thousand rivers in the republic – with the major ones being the Volga, the Sura, and the Tsivil – as well as four hundred lakes. Some of the Volga River valley reservoirs are in the north of the republic, and the Sura River flows towards the Volga along much of the republic's western boundary.
The climate is moderately continental, with the average temperatures ranging from in January to in July. Annual precipitation varies between , but is uneven from one year to another. Natural resources include gypsum, sand, clay, sapropel deposits, phosphorite, and peat. There are oil and natural gas deposits, although their extraction has not yet been commercially pursued. Forests, mostly in the south along the Sura River, cover approximately 30% of the land.
History
thumb|A map of the Chuvash Republic
The ancestors of the Chuvash were Bulgars and Suars, Oghur Turkic tribes residing in the Northern Caucasus in the 5th to 8th centuries. In the 7th and 8th centuries, a part of the Bulgars left for the Balkans, where, together with local South Slavs, they established the state of modern Bulgaria. Another part moved to the Middle Volga Region (see Volga Bulgaria), where the Bulgar population that did not adopt Islam formed the foundation of the Chuvash people.
Ethnic groups
According to the 2021 Census, ethnic Chuvash make up 63.7% of the republic's population. Other groups include Russians (30.7%), Tatars (2.7%), Mordvins (0.7%), and a host of smaller groups, each accounting for less than 0.5% of the total population.
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: right;"
|-bgcolor="#e0e0e0"
! rowspan="2" | Ethnic<br />group
! colspan="2" | 1926 Census
! colspan="2" | 1939 Census
! colspan="2" | 1959 Census
! colspan="2" | 1970 Census
! colspan="2" | 1979 Census
! colspan="2" | 1989 Census
! colspan="2" | 2002 Census
! colspan="2" | 2010 Census
|}
Genetics
Osteopetrosis affects 1 newborn out of every 20,000 to 250,000 worldwide, but the odds are much higher in the Russian region of Chuvashia (1 of every 3,500–4,000 newborns) due to genetic traits of the Chuvash people.
Religion
According to a 2012 survey,
Education
There are five higher educational institutions, including the Chuvash State University, the Chuvash State Pedagogical University, and the Chuvash State Agrarian University located in Cheboksary. These, together with 28 colleges and technical schools, are currently attended by approximately 45,000 students.
Economy
thumb|In a liquor distillery, [[Mariinsky Posad]]
The Chuvash Republic is the most populous and fertile area in the middle Volga region. There are deciduous woodlands on fertile black earth. In agriculture, wheat and sugar-beet, pigs and beef cattle have become more important than the rye, oats, barley and dairy cattle which are typical for the whole area.
The republic is Russia's center for growing hops and is famous throughout the country for its long history of beer brewing. It is also a major center for electrical engineering, especially in the area of power transmission and control systems.
Transportation
The transport network in the republic is one of the most developed in Russia. The republic's system of roads, railroads, waterways, and airports closely ties the region with others in and outside of Russia.