The Chuvash autonomous region was formed on June 24, 1920; on April 21, 1925 it was transformed into Chuvash ASSR; on October 24, 1990 it was renamed as Chuvash Soviet Socialist Republic, and on February 13, 1992 it became Chuvash Republic in the Russian Federation.

The republic was awarded with the orders of Lenin (1935), October Revolution (1970), and Friendship of Peoples (1972).

The territory is 18,300 km². The population is 1,346,300 people (as of January 1, 2002). Cheboxary is the capital. There are 21 administrative districts, nine towns, eight urban-type settlements, and 1,723 villages. The density of the population is 74 per km² (on the average in the Russian Federation it is 8.5, in the Privolzhskii federal district – 30.7). 40% of the population lives in the countryside. The distance from Cheboxary to Moscow is 650 km. We have Moscow time here.

The towns of republican importance are Cheboxary (474,800), Novocheboxarsk (124,200), Kanash (53,100), Alatyr (45,800), and Shumerlya (39,200). The towns of regional importance are Kozlovka (12,400), Tsivilsk (11,100), Mariinskii Posad (10,900), and Yadrin (10,900).

The national structure of the population is as follows: Chuvashes – 67.8%, Russians – 26.7%, Tatars – 2.7%, Mordva – 1.4%, and other nationalities – 1.4%. In total, more than 50 nationalities live friendly in Chuvashia. 18 public national-cultural associations were registered in Chuvash Republic. There are two state languages - Chuvash and Russian.

It is located on the right bank of the Volga River in the interfluve of the Sura and Sviyaga rivers. In the west the republic borders on Nizhnii Novgorod oblast, in the north - on the Republic of Marii El, in the east - on the Republic of Tatarstan, in the south - on Ulyanovsk oblast, in the southwest - on the Republic of Mordovia. Chuvashia is included into Privolzhskii federal district (PFD), and is a constituent of Volga-Vyatka economic region.

According to the census held in the USSR in 1989, there were 1,842,300 Chuvashes, 906,900 (49.3% of them) live in Chuvashia. As a result of migratory processes over the centuries large Chuvash diasporas came into being in different places: in Tatarstan there are more than 13,400, in Bashkortostan - more than 11,800, in Samara oblast - about 11,800, in Ulyanovsk - more than 11,600. From 10,000 to 30,000 Chuvashes live in Moscow, in Krasnoyarskiy krai, Kemerovo, Orenburg, Tyumen, Saratov, Chelyabinsk, Irkutsk, Perm, Volgograd oblasts, in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and in the Ukraine. In Russia there are 41 Chuvash national-cultural associations.

In number Chuvashes take the fourth place in Russia after Russians, Ukrainians, and Tatars. Today, in the European part of Russia among Turkic people only Chuvashes profess orthodoxy.

There are three ethnographic groups of Chuvashes: upper (viryal, turi) live in the northern and north-western districts of Chuvashia, low (anatri) - in the south of the republic and beyond its limits, middle-low (anat yenchi) - in the north-eastern and central districts. The Chuvash language consists of two mutually understandable dialects: upper (o-dialect) and low (u-dialect).

The National Coat of Arms of Chuvash Republic is a representation of a golden fringed heraldic shield, in the centre of which there is a purple “Tree of Life”. It symbolizes not only Revival, but represents the peoples of the Chuvash land. The “trunk” and “branches” of ethnic Chuvashes living on the native land grow from the purple “field – land”. The “branches” of ethnic Chuvashes living outside the republic grow from the line parallel to this “field”. The branches of the peoples - nations living on the territory of modern Chuvashia are also entwined in the crown of the “Tree of Life”. The heraldic shield is surmounted by the ancient Chuvash emblem “Three Suns” (meaning ‘three unity of time – the Past, the Present, and the Future’) and is framed by the purple band edged in gold, with the inscription “Chuvash Republic” in the Chuvash and Russian languages in golden letters, that ends in stylised images of leaves and cones of hop.

The National Flag of Chuvash Republic is a rectangular yellow-golden panel, at the bottom of which there is a purple Chuvash land, and in the centre there are emblems - “Tree of Life” and “Three Suns”.

One of the minor planets of the solar system carries the name of Chuvashia. The inhabitants of Chuvashia are proud of the fact that three Russian cosmonauts - Andriyan Nikolayev, Nikolai Budarin, and Musa Manarov were born, and grew up on Chuvash soil. Nine Olympic medals were brought into the receptacle of the country by Chuvash sportsmen, 40 times they became champions of the world and European competitions. The names - legends of Pyotr Yegorov - architect, author and builder of the fence of the Summer garden in St. Petersburg and a number of other facilities, of the priest Iakinf Bichurin - scientist-orientalist, translator, friend of Pushkin, of Alexei Krylov – an outstanding scientist - shipbuilder, of Nikolai Ashmarin, who studied the Turkic and Chuvash languages, a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of sciences, of Maxim Mikhailov and Nikolai Mordvinov - outstanding actors, of Nadezhda Pavlova - talented ballerina, and of many other people will remain forever in the history of the Russian state.