Mongols are a Central-North Asian people living in Mongolia, a large region lying on either side of the Sino-Russian frontier. Although most Mongols live in Mongolia, large numbers live also in China outside Mongolia. Owing to wars and migrations, they are also found in some Central Asian states such as Kazakhstan. In China, ethnic Mongols live mainly either in the central-north region of China (in Inner Mongolia) or, less commonly, in Xinjiang in the westernmost part of the country. Those belonging to the Buryat branch of the Mongol ethnic group live in what is now the autonomous republic of Buryatia, Russia. Mongols are bound together by a common culture and language, with groups of related tongues known as Mongolic languages. The contiguous geographic region inhabited by ethnic Mongols is also known as Greater Mongolia.