Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • A region of Asia consisting of the landlocked nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, along with the autonomous regions of Inner Mongolia, Tibet, and Xinjiang Uygur in China. In extended use the term sometimes also includes Afghanistan, Mongolia, and adjacent regions of other Asian countries.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • proper noun A landlocked area of continental Asia comprising Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. In the USSR and the modern Russia the area is called Middle Asia (Средняя Азия).
  • proper noun A larger area also including Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Tibet, western China, Afghanistan and parts of Siberia, Iran and Pakistan.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • The term Central Asia is here used to denote the Tarim basin, without rigidly excluding neighbouring countries such as the Oxus region and

    Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 Charles Eliot 1896

  • "diversify" applied to export routes from Central Asia is a code word for building pipelines to Europe that do not pass through Iran or Russia and for building a pipeline or pipelines that pass through Afghanistan to serve Pakistan and India.

    t r u t h o u t 2009

  • The gathering storm: although not part of what geographers call Central Asia, Iraq and the events unfolding in the country have an enormous impact on the ... from: Canada and the World Backgrounder

    GRANNIES HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN 2009

  • The gathering storm: although not part of what geographers call Central Asia, Iraq and the events unfolding in the country have an enormous impact on the ... from: Canada and the World Backgrounder

    OpEdNews - Quicklink: Seeing Baghdad, Thinking Saigon 2006

  • (Jean-François, André N.) the Kremlin is trying to remove Central Asia from the American zone of influence

    ¡No Pasarán! 2009

  • Before 2001, the U.S. had provided hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars in aid to Kyrgyzstan to advance its long-term democratic and economic development and to promote this country as a model of open society with democratic institutions and a market-based economy for all of Central Asia, which is also part of the Muslim world.

    The Kyrgyz Challenge Baktybek Abdrisaev 2009

  • Take the example of Kyrgyzstan, once an "island of democracy" in Central Asia, that is now, with U.S. support, backsliding into the authoritarianism of its neighbors.

    The Kyrgyz Challenge Baktybek Abdrisaev 2009

  • The poorest of the poor tend to be found in remote, environmentally stressed regions, such as the drylands of Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia, which is evident in Yale and Columbia's Environmental Performance Index.

    Land, Water And Conflict 2008

  • Both states, therefore, have good reason to want to limit U.S. influence in Central Asia, which is one of the world's most important new sources of oil and natural gas.

    Asia’s Dangerous Divide 2007

  • South of the Kirghis steppes lies another great and important territory, known as Central Asia, or Turkestan.

    Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) The Romance of Reality Charles Morris 1877

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