Ciskei, officially the Republic of Ciskei, was a Bantustan for the Xhosa people, located in the southeast of South Africa. It covered an area of 7,700 square kilometres (3,000 sq mi), almost entirely surrounded by what was then the Cape Province, and possessed a small coastline along the shore of the Indian Ocean.

The Xhosa people, or Xhosa-speaking people are a Bantu ethnic group native to South Africa. They are the second largest ethnic group in South Africa and are native speakers of the isiXhosa language.