Azawad (Tuareg: ⴰⵣⴰⵓⴷ, Azawd; Arabic: أزواد ‎, Azawād; French: Azawad) is an unrecognised state in North Africa unilaterally declared by the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) in 2012 after a Tuareg rebellion drove the Malian Army from the territory. Azawad, as claimed by the MNLA, comprises the Malian regions of Timbuktu, Kidal, Gao, as well as a part of Mopti region, encompassing about 60 percent of Mali's claimed total land area. Azawad borders Burkina Faso to the south, Mauritania to the west and northwest, Algeria to the north and northeast, and Niger to the east and southeast, with undisputed Mali to its southwest. It straddles a portion of the Sahara and the Sahelian zone. Gao is its largest city and the temporary capital, while Timbuktu is the second largest city, and intended to be the permanent capital.

On 6 April 2012, in a statement posted to its website, the MNLA declared "irrevocably" the independence of Azawad from Mali. In Gao on the same day, Bilal Ag Acherif, the secretary-general of the movement, signed the Azawadi Declaration of Independence, which also declared the MNLA as the interim administrators of Azawad until a "national authority" is formed. The proclamation has yet to be recognised by a foreign entity, and even the MNLA's claim to have de facto control of the Azawad region is disputed. The Economic Community of West African States, which refused to recognise Azawad and called the declaration of its independence "null and void", has said it may send troops into the disputed region in support of the Malian claim. On 26 May, the MNLA and its former co-belligerent Ansar Dine announced a pact in which they would merge to form an Islamist state.

The Tuareg (also spelled Twareg or Touareg; endonym Imuhagh) are a Berber people with a traditionally nomadic pastoralist lifestyle. They are the principal inhabitants of the Saharan interior of North Africa.

The Tuareg language, or languages, have an estimated 1.2 million speakers. About half this number is accounted for by speakers of the Eastern dialect (Tamajaq, Tawallammat). Most Tuareg live in the Saharan parts of Niger and Mali but, being nomadic, there is constant movement across national borders, and small groups of Tuareg are also found in southeastern Algeria, southwestern Libya and northern Burkina Faso, and a small community in northern Nigeria.

The name Tuareg is derived from Targa, the Berber name of Libya's Fezzan province. The name Tuareg thus in origin designated the inhabitants of Fezzan from the perspective of the Berbers living closer to the Mediterranean coast, and was adopted from them into English, French and German during the colonial period. The Berber noun targa means "drainage channel" and by extension "arable land, garden". It designated the Wadi al-Haya area between Sabha and Ubari and is rendered in Arabic as bilad al-khayr "good land". There is a widespread Arabic folk etymology of the name, connecting tawariq "abandoned [by God]", reflecting the religious disapproval of residual animist practice among the Tuareg by orthodox Muslims.