Mari people
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 560,000 | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
 Russia
|
547,605 (2010) |
 Kazakhstan
|
4,416 (2009) |
 Ukraine
|
4,130 (2001) |
 Belarus
|
416 (2009) |
 Latvia
|
277 (2009) |
 Estonia
|
241 (2011) |
| Languages | |
| Mari, Russian | |
| Religion | |
| Predominantly Russian Orthodox Christianity and Mari Traditional Religion | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| other Finno-Ugric peoples | |
The Mari (Mari: мари, Russian: марийцы) are a Finno-Ugric ethnic group, who have traditionally lived along the Volga and Kama rivers in Russia. Almost half of Maris today live in the Mari El republic, with significant populations in the Bashkortostan and Tatarstan republics. In the past, the Mari have also been known as the Cheremis in Russian and the Çirmeş in Tatar.
The Mari people consists of three different groups: the Meadow Mari, who live along the left bank of the Volga, the Mountain Mari, who live along the right bank of the Volga, and Eastern Mari, who live in the Bashkortostan republic. In the 2002 Russian census, 604,298 people identified themselves as "Mari," with 18,515 of those specifying that they were Mountain Mari and 56,119 as Eastern Mari. Almost 60% of Mari lived in rural areas.
The Mari have their own language, also called Mari, which is a member of the Uralic language family. It is written with a modified version of the Cyrillic alphabet. Linguists today distinguish four different dialects, which are not all mutually intelligible: Hill Mari (мары йӹлмӹ), concentrated mainly along the right Volga bank; Meadow Mari (марий йылме), spoken in the lowland regions of the Kokshaga and Volga rivers, which includes the city of Yoshkar-Ola; Eastern Mari, spoken east of the Vyatka River; and North-Western Mari.
In the 2002 census, 451,033 people stated that they spoke the Mari language.
...
Wikipedia