In Old Norse and Old English, it was known as Bjarmaland and Beormas respectively[10] but those Germanic names designate a wider area than the Russian Perm, extending into the Arkhangelsk Oblast.

[13] The neighbouring Uralic-speaking peoples use similar names for the Komi: Khanty sərän, sərån, săran, sārån, Mansi sarän, Nenets sānnğr, saran, Udmurt sara-kum.

[15] The theory that stated the word came from the name of the Kama River has been disproven,[15] though some scholars like Paula Kokkonen[16] favour this version.

Most of the population of the Komi Republic resides in urban centres but a notable minority continues to live in villages.

[19] There are two main dialects: Zyrian in the Komi Republic and Permyak in the Komi-Permyak Okrug, which have been traditionally treated as separate languages.

The Komi language is currently written in Cyrillic, adding two extra letters - Іі and Ӧӧ - to represent vowel sounds which do not exist in Russian.

[22] Based on linguistic reconstruction, the prehistoric Permians are assumed to have split into two peoples during the first millennium BC: the Komi and the Udmurts.

By the 16th-17th centuries, the Komi further divided into the Komi-Permyaks (who remained in the Kama River basin) and the Komi-Zyryans (who migrated north).

The Duke of Perm accepted baptism only in 1470 (he was given the Christian name Mikhail), possibly in an attempt to stave off Russian military pressure in the region.

The duchy survived only until 1505 when Mikhail's son Matvei was replaced by a Russian governor and Komi independence came to an end.

[26] In the 1500s, many Russian migrants began to move into the region, beginning a long process of colonisation and attempts at assimilating the Komis.

There were several Komi rebellions in protest against Russian rule and the influx of Slav settlers, especially after large numbers of freed serfs started arriving in the region in the 1860s.

[citation needed] The Allied forces encouraged the Komi to set up their own independent state with the help of political prisoners freed from the local penal colonies.

The influx of political prisoners and the rapid industrialisation of the region as a result of World War II left the Komi a minority in their own lands.

The Komi settlements were set-up with large, multi-courtyard churchyards and villages, which were typically constructed along or close to a river.

Since the Komi people inhabit territories densely covered with forests, the main material for the construction of houses and farm buildings has traditionally been wood.

The Vym house type is not very easy to distinguish from the Sysol home, its major differences lying in the windows and internal arrangement.

The popular Russian dumpling dish pelmeni likely has its origins in the cuisine of the Komi and Udmurt peoples, its name (пельнянь, pel'n'an') meaning "ear bread" in both languages.

Klavdij Alekseevich Popov (1874), Alexandr Vasilevich Krasov (1896), and Kallistrat Faloleevich Zhakov [ru] (1901) all made attempts to reconstruct the ancient religion of the Komi-Zyryans.

[32] A study on northeastern European populations, published in March 2013, found that Komi-Zyryans form a distinct pole of genetic diversity.