In the North Caucasus, Kumyks are a most numerous Türkic ethnic group, numbering about 500,000 people. After Azeris, Kumyks are a second-largest Türkic ethnos in the Caucasus. Kumyk could be spelled Kumık (ı as in “sit”), it was for centuries a politonym for ethnically distinct Türkic-speaking peoples of the area. The name Kumyk may ascend to the tribe Kom/Kamak mentioned by Pliny the Elder (d. 79 AD), supposedly of the Hunnic origin. Kumyk ethnogenesis includes Türkic tribes: Huns (3rd-4th cent.), Bulgars - Barsils and Savirs, Khazars (6th c.), and Kipchaks (9th c.). Of the founder nations, after the ample ethnic engineering of the last 150 years, only Kayi (Kaitags) and Masguts (Massagets, Alans) have retained traces of their ethnic distinction. The mountainous terrain lends itself to specialized economy, readily supporting settled agriculture, and nomadic and transhumant pastoralism. The Tengrian etiology of the areal nomadic populations is attested by the kurgan burials, known for their uniformity and monotony across Eurasia. Both the N. Caucasus and the S. Caucasus extending to the Iranian Plateau and Mesopotamia attest to nomadic pastoralism ascending to 3rd mill. BC. For millenniums, the horse nomadic pastoralists played a major role in the history of the area, preceding by millenniums the arrival there of the Indo-Aryan migrant farmers sometime around 1,500 BC. In the Arabic sources, Kumyk territory was called by the vernacular Djindan, a northern extension of the nomadic-populated Gilan, the Herodotus' Gelon.

The Eastern Huns appeared in the S. Caucasus at about 2nd c. AD as companions of Masguts, undoubtedly passing by the Aral Basin, where they joined Masguts (Massagets). In the merry-go-around of the nomadic coalitions, the Kayi Huns supplanted Masguts (Massagets, Alans), or  Masguts supplanted the Kayi Huns at the head of the Eastern Caucasian Türkic tribes. A search for an origin of the designation Kumyk uncovered a reference to a Hunnic tribe Kom/Kamak of the Pliny the Elder. Between 2nd c. AD and 1030 the common designation of the tribal union was Huns, also named Savirs (Suvars), with the name Kayi in the form Kaitag “Mountain Kayi” surviving as a third appellation. Initially Kayi was an appellation for the main tribe and state of the union, but after the disastrous events of 721 AD in the Arab campaign of the 713-737 war, Kayi dispersed and politically waned. Between 558 and 723 the city Semender (Targu), a Hunnic/Suvar capital, the appellation Hun/Suvar supplanted that of the Hun/Kayi, and after 723 both waned under an umbrella appellation Khazar. After Khazaria disintegrated under a series of strikes inflicted by the migrations of the Kangar Union (750), Oguz Yabgu state (9th c.) and Kipchaks (10th c.), the union reconstituted as a Kumyk Shauhalate, or Shauhalate of Targu, that was an alliance of willing headed by an elected chairman, an accurate reincarnation of the traditional Türkic idea of the state. The traditional vernacular term Shauhal lost its connection with the archaic term Sulifa both in articulation and in substance, advancing from designating an autonomous viceroy of a province to a status of an independent ruler of a country. Shauhalate lasted for 800 years, from incorporation in 1030 to dismantlement at the hands of the Russian colonial administration in 1867. An Avar articulation of the Sulifa/Shauhal developed into Shamhal, and that form was adopted in Russian literature.

On today's scale, demographic numbers are minor, and they were minor throughout the history. Tracing back the the 3-component founder nations of the present Kumyk population of 500,000 to its origin in the 2nd c. AD would bring it down to about 30,000 people (about 15-fold increase over 1800 years) with the combined military strength of about 6,000 cavalry. Still, the number of 6,000 cavalry far exceeds the cavalries of the great powers of the time, the Roman and Byzantine empires. Ethnically, there was nothing linear in the E. Caucasus. The three-dimensional turbulence mixed distinct elements, amalgamating and stratifying distinct nuclei. The initially distinct Türkic languages had to level out into numerous Sprachbunds, and areal Sprachbunds melted into a blended Kumyk Sprachbund. After cessation of the Arab conquests, with the leading Türkic tribes reduced and dispersed, a theretofore insignificant tribe Kom or Kamak came out ahead as a leading tribe of the reconstituted Hunnic principality. Like the politonym Huns, the umbrella term Kumyks applied to the area and population of the revived union of the Türkic tribes. The union survived for over a millennium, largely due to its democratic nature, succumbing only to the merciless hands of the Czarist and Stalinist regimes. The autonomous nature of its constituents helped to preserve individuality of each tribe till the Stalinist time, with a fairly common Sprachbund encompassing distinct Buinak, Khasavryut, Targu, and Piedmont dialects, and a distinct vernacular of the Kayi Huns (Kaitags). The genetic distinction had retained much less individuality: centuries of admixtures and amalgamations wrecked havoc with the statistics of the population genetics.

. The posted dateline is illustrative of the reigning confusion, same events are repeated with different dates, dating not only varies between sources, but at times also gets inverted, with effects preceding causes. Terminological havoc, with the terms Khazars, Bulgars, Huns, Savirs, Masguts, Kayi, Kök Türks and Western Türks used indiscriminately. Errors in esteemed but inaccurate sources get rebroadcasted and recited. The timeline is almost all about political events, leaving out the subjects of people, demography, ethnology, and culture. At the same time, timeline prudently skips some major modern political events directly connected with the Kumyk history, like the stellar progress on the ethnic dilution within the Kumyk area, or the abolition of the senatorial Council of Nationalities in the Russian parliament.

Kumyks - the most numerous Türkic ethnic group of the North Caucasus. Kumyk language belongs to the Kipchak group of the Altaic linguistic family. Kumyk ethnogenesis includes Türkic tribes: Huns (3rd-4th cent.), Bulgars - Barsils and Savirs, and Khazars (10th c.), and Kipchaks (9th c. cent.).

One of the most powerful Kumyk states on the north-eastern Caucasus was Shauhalate of Tarki (Targu Şavhallıgı). The term Shauhal, Shavhal is a local distortion of the term Sulifa recorded in the Chinese chronicles with the same semantics of “viceroy”. The variety of phonetic forms for the term Shauhal confirms that, it illustrates a chain of further distortions, like the Russian articulation Shamkhal(ate). As a salient independent state Shauhalate came to the fore in the period of the collapse of the (Kipchak Khanate) Golden Horde, namely in 1443, almost simultaneously with the formation of the Crimean Khanate, and lasted until 1867. And from this point of view it can be considered as post-Kipchak Khanate Türkic-Tatar state. As a unified entity, it existed till a death of Chopan-Shauhal of Targu in the 1780s. Later, due to internal and external factors in the late 16th - early 17th cc., it broke up into so-called biyliks (Mehtuli Khanate, Endirey, Kosty, and Aksai principalities).

The Shauhal state united not only Kumyks, but also Nogais, upper Dargins Laks, some Avar groups, Nakhs, and other ethnic groups. Initially, as attested by reliable sources, the Shauhalate capital was “the Shevkal's leading city Tarki” (S.Belokurov), “the former capital of the once powerful Khazars, and then of the redoubtable Shauhals” in the Caspian littoral. Shauhals had also a summer residence in the mountains –  (Kazi-) Kumuk. The family cemetery of the Shauhals survived to our days. The influence of the Shauhals was so great that it also spread over to the neighboring fiefs, associations, and unions of rural communities (jamaats). Shauhals practically taxed all possessions in the region. According to the contemporary sources, Shauhals were called Wali (Arabic, “ magistrate or governor”), and the Nutsal of Avaria called Shauhal “Padishah”. The Turkish traveler Evliya Chelebi, who in the 17th century visited Shauhal for long periods, in his book “Seyahat-name” calls Shauhal “Dagestan padishah” (“Shahin-shah”).

15th-16th centuries were the high period of the Shauhals. In diplomatic correspondence they were called “Shevkali kings”. After Shauhals' wars with Kabarda and Kartli-Kakheti, their possessions reached Pyatigorsk and r. Kuma. Shauhals were attracting mountain ethnoses to Islam and Türkic culture. According to Muslim historians, in the 16th-17th cc. Shauhals were a main obstacle for the Russian southward aggression. At the time, Kumyk Shauhalate was the only country opposing the Russian expansion in the region.

After the Rus' conquest of the Kazan (1552) and Astrakhan Khanates (1556), Kumyks successfully repelled 10 invasions of the Rus troops. In 1578 the Kumyk Shauhal state (ruled by Chopan-Shauhal), actively interacting and collaborating with the Ottoman Sultans, turned into an integral part of the Ottoman Empire (Dagestani Wilayat).

In 1605, all Dagestani rulers, having united under an umbrella of Kumyk Shauhals, supported the Ottoman troops and defeated the Rus troops in the Karaman Battle. After 1550s, broke a Shauhalate fragmentation process. After death of Shauhal Cholpan flaired an internecine struggle. One of his sons, Mohammed Sultan (from a Kabardin wife from the Uzda clan of Anzors) with a help of his mother's relatives entrenched on the Kumykia's N. Sulak bank centered at Enderi. Thus formed the Enderi possession, which later split into Enderi, Aksai and Kosti possessions. In the first half of the 17th century were convened congresses (kurultais, lit. “cure ties (familial)”) to reconcile with a Shauhal candidacy. So, the Kafyr-Kumyk ruler Andiy son of Surkhai (d. 1621), Ildar of Targu (d. 1634/35), Aydemir of Enderi (killed in 1641), Surkhai of Targu, Butai Bamat, and Adil-Giray were in turn elected Shauhals.

In the early 1640s, during a reign of Shauhal Aydemir, an uprising of the “proud Lak uzdenate (lit. “tribal chiefdom”, fr. Türkic uz “tribe”, den abstract denoun suffix)” against Shauhals marked a beginning of the process of the Laks (Lakia) falling away from the Shauhalate. From Shauhalate At the same time from the Shauhalate seceded the  Djengutai (Mekhtuli) possession, which later became known, after the name Mehta of the founder of the possession, as Mehtuli Khanate. In addition, after the collapse of the Shauhalate, formed several alliances of rural communities, called “jamaat” (E.g., Akusha-Dargo).

In addition to Kumyks, Shauhalate united other ethnic groups, that was reflected in the diverse multiethnic army of the Shauhals. They were called upon in the Ottoman-Russian-Iranian confrontation, and participated practically in all military events of the region that unfolded during the Ottoman-Russian-Iranian warfare for the Caucasus. Notably, Shauhals mostly gravitated toward the Ottoman Empire.

To the Kaytag utsmisate (apparently synonymous with uzdenate above, with suffix -mish) besides the southern Kumyks also belonged Dargins, Kaitags (Mountain Kayi), Kubans, Terekeme (Azerbaijanis), Tats, Mountain Jews, and others. From 1586 subjugation oft Kumyks was a part of the Russian aggressive policy in the Southern and the North-Eastern Caucasus. Moscow concluded an agreement with the Iberian king Alexander against Shauhal of Targu. In the spring of 1594, Russian troops moved from the r. Terek to the r. Koisu (now Sulak), where they joined with the Iberians and attacked the Shauhalate army of Kumyks and Nogais. Shamhal failed to defend the crossing, and was forced to retreat to the city of Tarki, the Shauhalate capital. However, with the support of the Avar Khan, Shauhal dislodged enemy from the city and pursued it to Koisu. Thus, the joint actions of the Targu Shauhal and the Avar Khan repelled the Russian onslaught and defended independence of Targu Shauhalate, preventing extension of the Russian domination and accession of the Iberian Czar Alexander to the North-East Caucasus.

But as soon as 1604 Russia again launched an offensive on the Terek; the Kumyk population of Enderi, Isti-Su, and other places suffered from the Russian troops, who were plundering their bread, food, cattle, fodder and horses. The suffering Kumyk population fled to Tarki to the Shauhal. When the Russian voivodes (commander) took the town, Shauhal took refuge at the Avar Khan. Soon a new Shauhal, Sultan-Mut (son in law of the Avar Khan) inspired Kumyks, Avars and other peoples of Dagestan, and completely displaced the Russian troops from the Targu and Sulak with a help from Derbent troops and aid from Shemakha.

Analysis of historical sources shows that the Kumyk magnates at different times sided with the Ottomans, or the Shah. By the Safavid-Ottoman Qasr-Shira Treaty of May 17, 1639, the two sides divvied the spheres of influence in the North Caucasus: the Shah's side extended to Derbent and its surroundings, Tabasaran and Shauhalate of Targu, and the rest of the region went to the Ottoman Empire. Despite that, Shauhal and other local magnates participated in the actions of the Crimean Khan and continued to sympathize with the Ottoman Empire. The Safavid shahs did not stop attempting to win the Kumyk rulers over.

After the February 16, 1801, proclamation in Tiflis of the Czar's manifesto on the Georgia's recognition of a supreme patronage of the Russian crown, emissaries carrying the Sultan firmans went to the Caucasus, calling for Muslims to rise up in defense of the common faith. Kumyks of the Targu Shauhalate participated in numerous riots, clashes, and campaigns of the indigenous peoples with the Russian troops. In the first half of the 19th c. one of the most prominent political figures in favor of the formation of a single state in the Central and North-Eastern Caucasus, under the aegis of the Targu Shauhal was Baibulat Taimi. He was leading the struggle. With the consent of the Mehti-Shauhal Targu in the Kazanish mosques was proclaimed a gazavat (Holy war).

After the conquest of the North Caucasus by the Russian troops and the conjuring of the Dagestan province in 1860, the Shauhal government was abolished. Notably, Kumyks were excruciated during the Caucasian war and resettlement policy of Czarist Russia.

The principalities of the Shauhalate were reshuffled into the newly formed districts of the Dagestan province (the Kaytag utsmisate and Tabasaran formed a Kaitag-Tabasaran district and the Targu Shauhalate, Mehtuli Khanate and the Sulak naibate formed a Temir-Khan-Shura district), and Terek province (Endirey, Aksai and Kosty possessions formed Kumyk district, later renamed to Khasavyurt). In 1920 the Khasavyurt district was included into the Dagestan SSR (Soviet Socialist Republic).

During the collapse period of the Soviet Union, Kumyks, like the other peoples of the once multi-ethnic country, woke up to rise in their national consciousness. That is reflected in the creation of Kumyk national organizations: Kumyk National Movement (KNM) “Tenglik” (Equality), “Vatan”, and Kumyk National Council (KNC). In 1990s, aggravated and rose problems created by the land policies during the Soviet era. On November 2, 1990, a Kumyk Congress adopted the Declaration of Kumyk Republic, proclaimed on the historical Kumyk territory.

Currently (2014), Kumyks are trying to defend the salience of their native language, history, and culture. That is driven by the rise of the Kumyk national consciousness within the multiethnic Dagestan.

The long period of unjust land reforms has changed demographic situation of the Kumyks.

Kumyks are one of the largest Türkic peoples not only of the Dagestan, but of the whole North Caucasus. They live in Ossetia, Ichkeria, Stavropol Territory, and in the Kuban foothils. Kumyks feel to be a part of the entire Türkic world, they maintain ethnic and cultural links with the other Türkic peoples of the Caucasus, and around the world. Connections grew especially close after the collapse of the Former USSR and the fall of the “Iron Curtain”. Now, despite ethnic problems, Kumyks accentuate the revival and preservation of their distinct primeval language and culture.