The Balkar (малкъар /malqar/) people are a Turkic people of the Caucasus region, thet titular population of Kabardino-Balkaria. Their language is of the Ponto-Caspian subgroup of the Northwestern (Kypchak) group of Turkic languages. Related to Crimean Tatar, Karachay, Nogay. There is also an opinion that the Balkars are remnants of a branch of the Bulgar tribe that moved into the Caucasus after the westward movement of the Hunnish wave at the beginning of the 4th century AD.

About 60,000 Balkars live in the Russian republic of Kabardino-Balkaria.

Term Bakar derrivied from Bolgar or Bulgar. Balkars was one part of Bulgars, lived in Onoghur and great Bulgaria and stayed in Caucasus, even another parts of this people nomadede to Balkans and Middle volga.

In 1944, Stalin accused the Balkars of Kabardino-Balkaria of collaborating with Nazi Germany and deported the entire population. The territory was renamed the Kabardin ASSR until 1957, when the Balkar population was allowed to return and its name was restored.