Inner Asia

"Inner Asia" is sometimes contrasted to "China proper", that is, the territories originally unified under the Qin dynasty with majority Han populations.

[5] Denis Sinor, for example, used "Inner Asia" in contrast to agricultural civilizations, noting its changing borders, such as when a Roman province was taken by the Huns, areas of North China were occupied by the Mongols, or Anatolia came under Turkish influence, eradicating Hellenistic culture.

However, because of its deficiencies, including the implication of an "Outer Asia" that does not exist, Denis Sinor has proposed the neologism "Central Eurasia", which emphasizes the role of the area in intercontinental exchange.

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.

Hungarian explorers and scholars of the early 19th century travelled to Inner Asia with an attempt to find their own national origins.

The Hungarian count Béla Széchenyi led a scientific expedition to Inner Asia in 1877–1880 and subsequently founded the journal Turán in 1913.

The term "Inner Asian studies" (Hungarian: belső-ázsiai kutatások; German: innerasiatische Studien) first appeared in the masthead of Turán.