ADIGEI, CHERKESS, autonomous area in the north Caucasian region of the R.S.F.S.R., created July, 1922. It is a narrow strip of territory lying north and south of lat. 45° and curving south at about long. 41 ° E., forming an autonomous island in the north Caucasian area, mainly along the south banks of the Kuban river and Laba river, from west of Krasnodar to south of Labinsk. It was formerly part of the Kuban province. The Kuban river is navigable to its confluence with the Laba river but is malarial and swampy and frequently floods its banks. The population. 114,176 (1926) is entirely rural and is administered from Kras nodar, for which purpose it is divided info the following sec tions :—Dzhidzhikhablsk (18,064), Natyrbovsk (22,229), Preo brazhensk (27,608) , Takhtamykaevsk (20,228), Khakyrino-Khab alsk (3o,o55). The Adigei or Adyghei (their own name) or Cherkess (their Russian name) are Circassians who formerly occupied the mountain valleys but were compelled by Russia in 186r either to settle on the flat land or to emigrate (200,000 settled irs Turkey, as the Bashi-Bazouks). They are mainly Alpine in physical type and speak a non-Aryan language related to Abkhasian and Kabard. Their religion was Mohammedan, mingled with old heathen and modern Christian rites. Cattle and sheep-rearing were their chief occupations, and great respect to seniority and hospitality, and fierce vendettas, were characteristic. Their present habitat is on the southern limit of the black earth steppe region where it merges into the broad-leaved, deciduous forest and they are now mainly agricultural, with wheat, maize and sunflower seed as the chief crops, and consequently their old customs are rapidly dying out.