In written sources of the 12th century they are known under the name of Yugra (together with Khanty), from the 14th century - under the name Voguls, Vogulichs. The ethnonym “Mansi” began to spread since the 30s of the XX century. Northern Mansi together with Khanty were called Ostyaks.

The Mansi language belongs to the Ob-Ugric subgroup of the Finno-Ugric group of the Uralic language family. It has many dialects. Ethnogenesis of Mansi took place in the course of merging of tribes of Ural Neolithic culture, Ugrian and Indo-European tribes, moving in II-I millennium BC from the south through Western Siberia and Northern Kazakhstan.

Researchers attribute the formation of the Mansi group living in the Perm Region to the Sylven archaeological culture (IX-XV centuries). Initially the Mansi were settled in the Southern Urals and its western slopes. Under the influence of Komi and Russian colonization they moved to the Trans-Urals region. Nowadays they live compactly on the territory of the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug, north-east of the Sverdlovsk Oblast, and a considerable part of them in the Tyumen Oblast.