ABSTRACT
Scholars debate the geographical extent of the region studied in this atlas and also the term to best describe it. Eurasia could be considered as that large land mass that includes all territory east of the Urals, all the way to the northwest Pacific Ocean. Or it could encompass only the five countries in Central Asia: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. This atlas includes these five states in Middle or Central Asia, but also the three states, all former Soviet republics, in the Caucasus, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, which many scholars writing about historical or contemporary events consider to have more in common culturally and politically with the Central Asian states than with Europe. Nevertheless, it is important to recognize that there remains a certain amount of ambiguity regarding the accepted territorial limits of what we term Central Eurasia.
