Central Asia: An Overview

Central Asia as it is commonly understood at the beginning of the twenty-first century is a region defined by a mixture of geographical, political, and cultural boundaries. Most definitions would place the western extreme of the region at the shore of the Caspian Sea, a geographical boundary. In the southwest, however, the conventional boundary is political: the border between Iran and Turkmenistan. And in the east, the distinct political border represented by the Chinese frontier is often disregarded...