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Lazistan was the Ottoman administrative name for the sanjak (under Trebizond Vilayet) comprising the Laz or Lazuri-speaking population on the southeastern shore of the Black Sea. However, its boundaries did not coincide with the Laz-speaking area. It covered the land of contemporary Rize Province and the littoral of contemporary Artvin Province.

The laz language is a Kartvelian language spoken by the Laz people on the Southeast shore of the Black Sea. It is estimated that there are around 20,000 native speakers of Laz in Turkey, in a strip of land extending from Melyat to the Georgian border (officially called Lazistan until 1925), and about 2,000 in Georgia.