What is "ingria"

Historical Ingria ( or ; , Ingriya, , Izhorskaya zemlya, or , Ingermanlandiya; ; or ) is the geographical area located along the southern shore of the Gulf of Finland, bordered by Lake Ladoga on the Karelian Isthmus in the north and by the River Narva on the border with Estonia in the west.

The Orthodox Izhorians, along with the Votes, are the indigenous people of historical Ingria. With the consolidation of the Kievan Rus and the expansion of the Republic of Novgorod north, the indigenous Ingrians became Greek Orthodox. Ingria became a province of Sweden in the Treaty of Stolbovo in 1617 that ended the Ingrian War, fought between Sweden and Russia. After the Swedish conquest of the area in 1617 the Ingrian Finns, descendants of 17th-century Lutheran emigrants from present-day Finland, became the majority in Ingria. In 1710, following a Russian conquest, Ingria was designated as the Province of St. Petersburg. In the Treaty of Nystad (1721), Sweden formally ceded Ingria to Russia. In 1927 the Soviet authorities designated the area as Leningrad Province. Deportations of the Ingrian Finns started in late 1920s, and Russification was nearly complete by the 1940s. , Ingria forms the northwestern anchor of Russia—its "window" on the Baltic Sea—with Saint Petersburg as its centre.

Ingria as a whole never formed a separate state (compare however North Ingria); the Ingrians, understood as the inhabitants of Ingria regardless of ethnicity, can hardly be said to have been a nation, although the Soviet Union recognized their "nationality"; as an ethnic group, the Ingrians proper, Izhorians, are close to extinction together with their language. This notwithstanding, many people still recognize their Ingrian heritage.

Historic Ingria covers approximately the same area as the Gatchinsky, Kingiseppsky, Kirovsky, Lomonosovsky, Tosnensky, Volosovsky and Vsevolozhsky districts of modern Leningrad Oblast as well as the city of Saint Petersburg.