The Adyghe or Adygs (Adyghe: Адыгэ or Adǝgă, Arabic: شركس/جركس‎, Jarkas/Sharkas,Persian: چرکس‎,charkas), also often known as Circassians or Cherkess, are in origin a North Caucasian ethnic group who were displaced in the course of the Russian conquest of the Caucasus in the 19th century, especially after the Russian–Circassian War of 1862.

Adyghe people mostly^{[dubious – discuss]} speak Circassian (called Adyghe in the west and Kabardin in the east), and most practise Sunni Islam.

There remain about two million speakers of Circassian, mostly in the republics of Kabardino-Balkaria, Adygea, and Karachay–Cherkessia, as well as a number in the Russian Federation outside these republics.

The Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization estimates that there are as many as 3.7 million "ethnic Circassians" outside of the Circassian republics (meaning that only one in seven "ethnic Circassians" is a speaker of the Circassian language), of whom about 2 million live in the Republic of Turkey, 700,000 in the Russian Federation, about 150,000 in the Levant, and about 50,000 in western countries (Europe and USA).