North Caucasus Observatory
Seven republics: profiles, population estimates, languages, institutions and religious life, with documented sources.
Initial research edition
Seven republics 7,927,303
Population · 1 Jan 2025
Population: 1 January 2025. Language provisions follow the cited source editions.
North Ossetia–Alania
Republic
Religious composition
CSVHistorical survey · 2012[24][25]
Religious self-identification · adult respondents aged 18+ · one answer.
29 May–25 June 2012
Survey results describe 2012 adult respondents, not the present-day population. Percentages are rounded. The publisher reports 500–800 interviews per region; the exact achieved sample for this republic is unverified. Overview groups combine the original response options, listed below.
Survey method & grouping
Historical adult survey, 29 May–25 June 2012; one answer per respondent. Shares concern regional respondents aged 18+, not the current population. The publisher reports 56,900 interviews overall and 500–800 per participating region; the exact achieved sample for this republic was not established. The eight overview groups are our aggregation of the 18 original response options, all retained below, including zero values. Christianity combines seven Christian options; Islam combines three Muslim options; other religions combines Buddhism, Judaism and Eastern religions/spiritual practices. These survey groupings describe self-identification, not practice or ethnicity.
All survey response options
- Orthodox, Russian Orthodox Church49.2%
- Belief without a specific religion0.8%
- No belief in God3%
- Islam, neither Sunni nor Shia3%
- Christian, neither Orthodox, Catholic nor Protestant9.8%
- Sunni Islam1%
- Other Orthodox affiliation, excluding Old Believers2.2%
- Traditional ancestral religion29.4%
- Buddhism0%
- Old Believers0.2%
- Protestantism0.8%
- Shia Islam0%
- Catholicism0%
- Judaism0%
- Eastern religions and spiritual practices0%
- Pentecostal Christianity0%
- Other response0.2%
- Unable to choose an answer0.4%
Language provisions
Ossetian; Russian[15]
Source editions
The posted article 15 identifies Ossetian and Russian as state languages and explicitly names the Iron and Digor dialects of Ossetian. These provisions do not establish everyday language-use proportions.[15]
Institutions
The republic’s Parliament hosts the constitutional source used in this profile. Article 15 records a March 2021 amendment to its language provision; the formal text is not an assessment of language-policy implementation.[15]