Ingushetia, officially the Republic of Ingushetia, is a republic of Russia located in the North Caucasus of Eastern Europe. The republic is part of the North Caucasian Federal District, and shares land borders with the country of Georgia to its south; and borders the Russian republics of North Ossetia–Alania to its west and north and Chechnya to its east and northeast.

Its capital is the town of Magas, while the largest city is Nazran. At 3,600 square km in terms of area, the republic is the smallest of Russia's non-city federal subjects. It was established on 4 June 1992, after the Checheno-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was split in two. The republic is home to the indigenous Ingush, a people of Nakh ancestry. As of the 2021 Census, its population was estimated to be 527,220.

Largely due to the insurgency in the North Caucasus, Ingushetia remains one of the poorest and most unstable regions of Russia. Although the violence has died down in recent years, the insurgency in neighboring Chechnya had occasionally spilled into Ingushetia. According to Human Rights Watch in 2008, the republic has been destabilized by corruption, a number of high-profile crimes (including kidnapping and murder of civilians by government security forces), anti-government protests, attacks on soldiers and officers, Russian military excesses and a deteriorating human rights situation. In spite of this, Ingushetia has the highest life expectancy in all of Russia.

The name Ingushetia (Ингушетия) derives from the Russian name of the Ingush, which in turn is derived from the ancient Ingush village Angusht, and from the Georgian suffix -éti. The name in Ingush is Ghalghaaichie (Гӏалгӏайче, /ʁalʁaitʃe/).

In the 1920–1930s there was not yet a unifying name for the Ingush Autonomous Oblast. Although the oblast was officially called Ingushetia, some scientists like Nikolai Yakovlev [ru] and Leonid Semyonov [ru] insisted that its correct name is Ingushiya (Ингушия).

6000–4000 BC

20 BC

1239 AD