The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe between the 4th and 6th centuries CE. According to European tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area that was part of Scythia at the time.[1] By 370 CE, the Huns had arrived on the Volga, causing the westwards movement of Goths and Alans.[2] By 430, they had established a vast, but short-lived, empire on the Danubian frontier of the Roman empire in Europe. Either under Hunnic hegemony, or fleeing from it, several central and eastern European peoples established kingdoms in the region, including not only Goths and Alans, but also Vandals, Gepids, Heruli, Suebians and Rugians.

The Huns, especially under their King Attila, made frequent and devastating raids into the Eastern Roman Empire. In 451, they invaded the Western Roman province of Gaul, where they fought a combined army of Romans and Visigoths at the Battle of the Catalaunian Fields, and in 452, they invaded Italy. After the death of Attila in 453, the Huns ceased to be a major threat to Rome and lost much of their empire following the Battle of Nedao (c. 454). Descendants of the Huns, or successors with similar names, are recorded by neighboring populations to the south, east, and west as having occupied parts of Eastern Europe and Central Asia from about the 4th to 6th centuries. Variants of the Hun name are recorded in the Caucasus until the early 8th century.

In the 18th century, French scholar Joseph de Guignes became the first to propose a link between the Huns and the Xiongnu people, who lived in northern China from the 3rd century BCE to the late 1st century CE.[3] Since Guignes's time, considerable scholarly effort has been devoted to investigating such a connection. The issue remains controversial, but recent archaeogenetic studies show some Hun-era individuals to have DNA similar to populations in ancient Mongolia.[4] Their relationships with other entities, such as the Iranian Huns and the Huna people who invaded the Indian subcontinent, have also been disputed.

Very little is known about Hunnic culture, and very few archaeological remains have been conclusively associated with the Huns. They are believed to have used bronze cauldrons and to have performed artificial cranial deformation. No description exists of the Hunnic religion at the time of Attila, but practices such as divination are attested, as well as the likely existence of shamans. It is also known that the Huns had a language of their own; however, only three words and personal names attest to it.

Economically, the Huns are known to have practiced a form of nomadic pastoralism. As their contact with the Roman world grew, their economy became increasingly tied with Rome through tribute, raiding, and trade. They do not seem to have had a unified government when they entered Europe but rather to have developed a unified tribal leadership in the course of their wars with the Romans. The Huns ruled over a variety of peoples who spoke numerous languages, and some maintained their own rulers. Their main method of warfare was mounted archery.

The Huns may have initiated the Great Migration, a contributing factor in the collapse of the Western Roman Empire.[5] The memory of the Huns also lived on in the hagiographies of various Christian saints, where the Huns play the role of antagonist, as well as in Germanic heroic legend, where the Huns are variously the antagonists or allies of the main Germanic figures. In Hungary, a legend developed based on medieval chronicles that the Hungarians, and in particular the Székely ethnic group, are descended from the Huns. However, mainstream scholarship has dismissed a close connection between the Hungarians and Huns.[6] Modern culture generally associates the Huns with extreme cruelty and barbarism and is intertwined with the Mongol Empire.[7]