The Republic of Karelia, Karjala or Karelia, is a republic of Russia situated in the northwest of the country. The republic is a part of the Northwestern Federal District, and covers an area of 172,400 square kilometres, with a population of 533,121 residents. Its capital is Petrozavodsk.

Karelian is a Finnic language spoken mainly in the Russian Republic of Karelia. Linguistically, Karelian is closely related to the Finnish dialects spoken in eastern Finland, and some Finnish linguists have even classified Karelian as a dialect of Finnish, though in the modern day it is widely considered a separate language. Karelian is not to be confused with the Southeastern dialects of Finnish, sometimes referred to as karjalaismurteet in Finland. In the Russian 2020–2021 census, around 9,000 people spoke Karelian natively, but around 14,000 said to be able to speak the language.