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Inner Asia refers to the northern and regions spanning North Asia, Central Asia, and East Asia. It includes parts of Western China and northeast China, as well as southern Siberia. The area overlaps with some definitions of "Central Asia", mostly the historical ones, but certain regions that are often included in Inner Asia, such as Manchuria, are not a part of Central Asia by any of its definitions. Inner Asia may be regarded as the western and northern "frontier" of China proper and as being bounded by East Asia proper, which consists of China proper, Japan, and Korea.
The extent of Inner Asia has been understood differently in different periods. "Inner Asia" is sometimes contrasted to "China proper", that is, the territories originally unified under the Qin dynasty with majority Han Chinese populations. By the year 1800, Chinese Inner Asia consisted of four main areas, namely Manchuria (modern Northeast China and Outer Manchuria), the Mongolian Plateau (Inner Mongolia and Outer Mongolia), Xinjiang (Chinese Turkestan or East Turkestan), and Tibet. Many of these areas had been only recently conquered by the Qing dynasty of China and, during most of the Qing period, they were governed through administrative structures different from those of the older Chinese provinces.The Cambridge History of China: Volume 10, Part 1, by John K. Fairbank, p37 A Qing government agency, the Lifan Yuan, supervised the empire's Inner Asian regions, also known as Chinese Tartary. The frontier regions of China proper—Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan, and Yunnan—are also sometimes included as part of Inner Asia.
Scholars or historians of the Qing dynasty, such as those who compiled the New Qing History, often use the term "Inner Asia" when studying Qing interests or reigns outside China proper, New Qing Imperial History: The Making of Inner Asian Empire at Qing Chengde, ed. Ruth W. Dunnell, Mark C. Elliott, Philippe Foret and James A. Millward although previous Chinese dynasties like the Han dynasty, Tang dynasty, and Ming dynasty also expanded their realms and influences into Inner Asia.
According to Morris Rossabi, Inner Asia is composed not only of the five Central Asian countries, which includes Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan, but also includes Afghanistan, Xinjiang, Mongolia, Manchuria, and parts of Iran.
The Committee on Inner Asian and Altaic Studies of Harvard University defines Inner Asia as a region consisting of Russian Turkestan, Xinjiang, Eastern Iran, Northern Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tibet, Qinghai, Sichuan, Gansu, and northwestern Yunnan.
The Mongolia and Inner Asia Studies Unit at the University of Cambridge defines Inner Asia as "an area centred on Mongolia and extending across the region of Eurasian Steppe to the Himalayas", including Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Xinjiang, Tibet, Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan, Yunnan, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang, Altai Republic, Tuva, Buryatia, and Chita Oblast.
The terms meaning "Inner Asia" in the languages of Inner Asia itself are all modern translations of terms in European languages, mostly Russian language.
The definition that can be given of Central Eurasia in space is negative. It is that part of the continent of Eurasia that lies beyond the borders of the great sedentary civilizations.... Although the area of Central Eurasia is subject to fluctuations, the general trend is that of diminution. With the territorial growth of the sedentary civilizations, their borderline extends and offers a larger surface on which new layers of barbarians will be deposited.
In the first two decades of the 20th century, Hungarian-British archaeologist Aurel Stein made important discoveries over the course of his four expeditions to Inner Asia. In 1928, Stein published Innermost Asia: Detailed Report of Explorations in Central Asia, Kan-su and Eastern Iran, Carried Out and Described under the Orders of H.M. Indian Government in four volumes. In 1940, the first academic chair for Inner Asian studies was established by the Hungarian Oriental studies and linguist Lajos Ligeti at the University of Budapest.
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