Asia, Asian

Use the terms Far East and Orient with caution.  Asia or East Asia are more neutral terms.

Asian is the NGS preferred term to Oriental and Asiatic as both noun and adjective.

Not Asiatic in reference to a person, but Asiatic lion.

East Asia: Use the terms Far East and Orient with caution. Asia or East Asia are more neutral terms.

Central Asia, Soviet Central Asia: Capitalize the term Central Asia (or historically Russian Central Asia or Soviet Central Asia) for the area of present-day:

            Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan.

A wider definition includes Afghanistan, northeastern Iran, Pakistan, northern India, western China, and Mongolia.

South Asia: Capitalize as the name for the region of southern Asia that generally includes:

            Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka

Sometimes Afghanistan and even Myanmar (Burma) are considered part of South Asia, though Afghanistan is more often placed in Central Asia, and Myanmar in Southeast Asia.

Southeast Asia generally consists of Asian countries south of China and east of India, including Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.

West Asia is growing in popularity as a neutral, non-Eurocentric synonym for the Middle East.  It generally includes: the Arabian Peninsula, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestinian territories, Syria, and Turkey, though it may be stretched to include:Afghanistan and Pakistan, and even Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Cyprus.

MAP: DAVID MILLER