The Sabir people inhabit the southwestern Caspian Depression of Strabo's Sauromatae (though they are not to be confused with the Sarmatians) prior to the arrival of the Caucasian Avars from Abarshahr (Khorasan).

They appear to have been an Oghur Turkic people, possibly of Hunnic origin.The name Sabir may be related to the name Siberia (which may itself be an alternative name for the Ugrian-speaking Mansi people) or with the far Eastern Hsien-pi.

Conquered first by the Avars and later by the Göktürks, by the 700s they largely vanish from the historical record; probably being assimilated into the Khazars and Bulgars.