The Adjarians (Georgian: აჭარლები, Ačarlebi) are an ethnographic group of Georgians that mostly live in Adjara in south-western Georgia.

The Adjarians have their own territorial unit—an autonomous republic of Adjara, founded on July 16, 1921, as Adjara ASSR. After years of post-Soviet stalemate, the region was, in 2004, completely brought within the framework of the Georgian state; it retains an autonomous status. Adjarian settlements are also found in the Georgian provinces of Guria, Kvemo Kartli, and Kakheti, as well as several areas of neighboring Turkey.

Language

The Adjarians speak Adjarian, a local dialect of the Georgian language, related to that spoken in the neighboring northern province of Guria, but with a number of Turkish loanwords and with many common features with the Zan languages—Mingrelian and Laz—which are sisters to Georgian and are included in the Kartvelian or South Caucasian group.

Religion

Many Adjarians were converted to Islam by the Ottoman Empire in the 16th and 17th centuries when the Ottomans occupied southwestern Georgian lands.