The purpose of the article is to study the processes of settlement of the Northern Caspian region in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The research is based on published sources and archival documents that were introduced into scientific circulation for the first time. Existing studies on the settlement of the Northern Caspian region are often fragmentary. The main attention in the article is paid to the history of the founding and settlement of Lagan village - its complex history is presented for the first time, on the basis of previously unpublished archival data. The analysis of the sources shows that during the period under study, the region was being actively populated. The article analyzes the reasons for the migration activity, it is concluded that the main reason for the mass migration of the population, primarily peasants, was land scarcity. The settlers put down in the Astrakhan province. The time of the emergence of most of the villages is the end of the 18th - the first half of the 19th centuries. In the 19th century there were seven settlements formed by settlers from the central provinces of Russia on the Caspian coast or close to it. Lagan was one of them Lagan (other villages - Vakhromeevsky, Olya, Razbugorinsky, Rynok, Sedlisty, Chetyrekhbugorny). The study of Lagan, a new settlement that supposedly arose in the 1870s, on the northwestern coast of the Caspian Sea, is of scientific interest. An attempt is made in the article to analyze the social composition of migrants, the places of their origin are considered. The factors that attracted migrants to the Astrakhan province are also examined. The conducted research allows us to conclude with confidence that the settlement of the Astrakhan province is one of the important directions of government policy. The authorities were interested in the development of the productive forces of a vast, sparsely populated territory. The development of sea and river fisheries, development of agriculture contributed to the influx of newcomers here. The settlement of the region was carried out in different ways: official resettlements initiated by the government; and unauthorized one. With the significant role of unauthorized resettlements, the state still played its leading role in regulating resettlement flows during the 19th - early 20th centuries.
