The Bulgars (also Bolgars, Bulghars or Proto-Bulgarians) are people who live in Eastern Europe during the Early Middle Ages.

Their ethnic origins are uncertain, but most scholars posit that they were a Turkic people with some Iranian elements, that migrated to Europe from Central Asia in the 4th century.

In the 7th century they establish two states on the Pontic-Caspian steppe: Great Bulgaria, which spans between the Caspian Sea and Black Sea, and Volga Bulgaria on the territory that is now part of the Russian Republics of Tatarstan and Chuvashia.

Likewise, they impose themselves in the Balkans as the elite ruling class of the Danube Bulgar Khanate.

In each of these regions they are gradually assimilated over a period of centuries by the local ethnic groups, giving rise to several modern peoples claiming descent from them: Volga Tatars and Chuvash, Balkars and Bulgarians.