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They are probably the descendents of the Oghuz Turks that settled down in this area in the 11th century and adopted Christianity. In fact they, along with the Chuvash people of the Russian Federation, are the only ethnic Turkic groups which are predominantly Christian (and Eastern Orthodox).

Gagauz people have settlements in the Ukrainian regions of Odessa and Zaparozhye , as well as Kazakhstan, Kyrghyzstan , Uzbekistan, Kabardino-Balkarian , and Romania. There are also nearly 20,000 Gagauz living in the Balkan countries of Greece and BulgariaThe Republic of Bulgaria is a republic in the southeast of Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the east, Greece and Turkey to the south, Serbia and Montenegro and the Republic of Macedonia to the west, and Romania to the north along the river Danube..

There is a related ethnic group also called Gagauz living in the European side of TurkeyTurkey (officially the Republic of Turkey Turkish Turkiye is a country located in Southwest Asia with a small part in southeastern Europe. Until 1922 the country was the center of the Ottoman Empire. The Anatolian peninsula, between the Black Sea and the and in Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and they are Muslims.

Ancestors of the Gagauz can be traced to the early nomadic tribe s, Guzi and Uzi. Byzantine written history records that in the 11th century the nomadic tribe Guzi crossed the Danube River and settled in the Balkan regions of MacedoniaAlexander the Great, king of ancient Macedon, on the waterfront at Thessaloniki, capital of Greek Macedonia Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of the Balkan peninsula in south-eastern Europe with an area of around 67,000 square kilometres a, Greece, and Bulgaria. Once settled in these new regions, the Guzi people shifted to a sedentary lifestyle and adopted Orthodox Christianity. The ethnic mixes of the Guzi with other Turkic tribes of the Pechenegi , Polovtsi and Kumani are direct descendants of modern day Gagauzians.

A majority of specialists including, historians, ethnographers and philologists consider the Gagauz one of the original peoples of the Turkic world. In the 13th century the first state of the Gagauz people, known as the " Dobrydzha Principality" or "Uzi Ayalet" in Gagauz, was established in Korbuna on the territory of what is now modern day Romania. This principality flourished for more than two centuries until it fell under the control of Ottoman conquerors in the 15th century.

After living many oppressive years under Ottoman rule, the Gagauz migrated to teritories ruled by Russia via the Danube between 1750 and 1846. They then settled in southern Bessarabia regions. Turkic-speaking tribes of the Nogai Horde inhabited the Budjak Region of southern Bessarabia from the 16th to 18th centuries. Before 1807, a portion of these tribes were forced to abandon Budjak by the czarist government of Russia and resettled in Crimea, Azov and Stavropol. The Gagauz and Bulgarian migrants then appeared in the settlements vacated by the Nogai tribes. Russia gave these immigrants from the Danube incentives to relocate here by allocating land and helping them settle this new territory. They also taught these new settlers to speak and write Russian. At the same time, inhabitants of northern Bessarabia were also settling this area, as well as peasants fleeing Russian serfdom, German colonizers from the Duchy of Warsaw and others. The Gagauz settled Avdarma , Comrat, Congaz , Tomai , Cismichioi and other former Nogai villages located in the central Budjak Region. These immigrants transformed the barren Budjak steppes into a fertile agricultural region.

The Gagauz language was written in the Greek alphabet up to 1957, when a modified form of Cyrillic was adopted.

With the exception of a 5-day independence in the winter of 1906, when a peasant uprising declared the autonomous Republic of Comrat , the Gagauzian people have been ruled by the Russian Empire, Romania, Germany and the Soviet Union.

Gagauz nationalism remained an intellectual movement during the 1980's but strengthened by the end of the decade as the Soviet Union began to embrace democratic ideals. In 1988, activists from the local intelligentsia aligned with other ethnic minorities to create the movement known as the "Gagauz People". A year later the "Gagauz People" held its first assembly which accepted the resolution to create an autonomous territory in southern Moldova with Comrat designated as capital. In August of 1990, Comrat declared itself an autonomous republic, but the Moldovan government annulled the declaration as unconstitutional. The Gagauz national movement intensified when Romanian was accepted as the official language of the Republic of Moldova. The multiethnic populations of southern Moldova regarded this decision with concern, precipitating a lack of confidence in the central government located in Chisinau. These people encouraged Gagauzia to become independent.

Only on December 23, 1994 did the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova accept the "Law on the Special Legal Status of Gagauzia" (Gagauz Yeri), resolving the dispute peacefully. This date is now a Gagauzian holiday. Many European human-rights organizations recognize Gagauzia as a successful model for resolving ethnic conflict for other countries to follow.

30 settlements, including 3 towns and 27 villages, expressed their desire to be included in the Autonomous Gagauz Territory as a result of a referendum to determine Gagauzia's borders. In 1995, Mr. George Tabunshik was elected to serve as the Governor ( Bashkan ) of Gagauzia for a four year term as were the deputies of the local parliament, "The People's Assembly" and its chairman Mr. Peter Pashali .