The land the Nivkh inhabit is characterized as taiga forest with cold snow-laden winters and mild summers with sparse tree cover.

[4] "Gilyak" is the Russian rendering of terms derived from the Tungusic "Gileke" and Manchu-Chinese "Gilemi" (Gilimi, Gilyami) for culturally similar peoples of the Amur River region, and was applied principally to the Nivkh in Western literature.

They transported numerous Russian criminal and political exiles there, including Lev Sternberg, an important early ethnographer of the Nivkh.

[7] The Nivkh suffered epidemics of smallpox, plague, and influenza, brought by the immigrants and spread in the crowded, unsanitary prison environment.

[37] According to "Modern Ainu: The Romance of Ethnic Migration" (現代のアイヌ : 民族移動のロマン, by Kosuge Sugawara, 1966 under Genbunsha), these Nivkh people in Japan resided in Abashiri, Hakodate, and Sapporo.

One notable displaced Nivkh from Karafuto to Abashiri was Chiyo Nakamura (1906–1969), a shaman from Poronaisk (Japanese: 敷香町, romanized: Shisuka-machi).

[43] At present, the Nivkh living in the north of Sakhalin see their future threatened by the giant offshore oil extraction projects known as Sakhalin-I and Sakhalin-II, operated by foreign Western firms.

Since January 2005, the Nivkh, led by their elected leader Alexey Limanzo, have engaged in non-violent protest actions, demanding an independent ethnological assessment of Shell's and Exxon's plans.

[48] Nivkh's traditional religion was based on animist beliefs, especially via shamanism, before colonial Russians made efforts to convert the population to Eastern Orthodox Christianity.

[50] Nivkh have a pantheon of vaguely defined gods (yz, yzng)[clarification needed] that presided over the mountains, rivers, seas and sky.

[51] Nivkhs' have extensive folklore, songs, and mythos of how humans and the universe were created, and of how fantastic heroes, spirits and beasts battled with each other in ancient times.

In the fish-rich Amur River estuary in the districts of Nixhne-Amruskii and Takhtinskii, winters have high winds and heavy snows with mid-winter usually averaging from −28 to −20 °C (−18 to −4 °F).

The area's biome is characterized as Taiga and evergreen coniferous forests consisting of larch, yew, birch, maple, lilac, honeysuckle, and extensive low-lying swamp grasses.

Bears, foxes, sables, hares, Siberian tigers, elks, grouse, and deer typical near the Amur outlet which usually floods during the rainy season.

Barren tundra dominates the north, with sparse trees such as larch, birch and various grasses, while moving southward, spruce and fir are seen.

[62] The Strait of Tartary is currently only 20 kilometers (12 mi) wide and is shallow enough that an ice bridge forms during the winter that can be traversed by foot or dog-sledge.

The receding ice age warmed the area, allowing greater tree cover and wildlife, thus new resources for the Nivkhs to exploit.

The opening of the Soya and then the shallower Strait of Tartary allowed warm pacific currents to bathe the island and the lower Amur River.

[46] Nivkhs traditionally wore robes (skiy for men, hukht for women) having three buttons, fastened on the left side of the body.

Women's hukht extended below the knee and were light multicoloured with intricate embroideries and various ornaments sewed on the sleeves, collar and hem.

Fish was the main source of food for the Nivkh, including pink, Pacific, and chum salmon as well as trout, red eye, burbot and pike found in rivers and streams.

Additionally, industrial pollution such as phenols and heavy metals in the Amur River have devastated fish stocks and damaged the soil of the estuaries.

[65] There is a traditional preservation process called yukola, involving slicing the fish in a particular way and drying the strips by hanging them in the frigid air, without salt.

[66] The preservation process created a lot of dried fish waste, unpalatable for human consumption but utilized for dog food.

[66] Contacts with the Chinese, Manchu, and Japanese from the 12th century on introduced new foods incorporated in the Nivkhs’ diet, such as salt, sugar, rice, millet, legumes and tea.

[70] According to the abstract for a doctoral dissertation by Vladimir Nikolaevich Kharkov, a sample of 52 Nivkhs from Sakhalin Oblast contained the following Y-DNA haplogroups: 71% (37/52) C-M217 (xC-M77/M86, C-M407), 7.7% (4/52) O-M324 (xO-M134), 7.7% (4/52) Q-M242 (xQ-M346), 5.8% (3/52) D-M174, 3.8% (2/52) O-M175 (xO-P31, O-M122), 1.9% (1/52) O-P31, and 1.9% (1/52) N-M46/M178.

[71] Kharkov et al. (2024) examined the Y-chromosome haplogroups of 37 Nivkh males in the Okhinsky District of Sakhalin Oblast, who were estimated to have no paternal admixture with other ethnic groups.

[72] Torroni et al. (1993) reported collecting blood samples from 57 "unrelated and unhybridized Nivkh individuals living in Rybnovsk and Nekrasovka villages in northern Sakhalin Island.

The authors have noted that mtDNA sequences that belong to the same branch of haplogroup D have been found in Evenks, Evens, Yukaghirs, and South Siberian Buryats and Turkic speakers, and another study has reported one instance of D4m2 in a sample of 154 Dolgans.

[78][79] М. А. Gubina et al. (2013) examined the mitochondrial DNA of a sample of seventeen Nivkhs from the village of Nogliki, Nogliksky District, Sakhalin Oblast and found that they belonged to haplogroup Y (8/17 = 47.1%, all Y1a+T16189C!