Region in the middle of the Asian continent east of the Caspian Sea
Central Asia stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to China in the east and from Afghanistan in the south to Russia in the north. The region consists of the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. It is also colloquially referred to as "the stans" as the countries generally considered to be within the region all have names ending with the Persian suffix "-stan", meaning "land of".
- Afghanistan - Territory in southwest central Asia, nominally ruled since 2004 by the Da Afġānistān Islāmī Jumhoryat
- Kazakhstan - Territory in west central Asia, ruled since 1991 by the Qazaqstan Respublïkası
- Kyrgyzstan - Territory in west central Asia, ruled since 1991 by the Kyrgyz Respublikasy
The introductory paragraph uses material from the Wikipedia article "Central Asia" as of 8 Nov 2018, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.