Inner Asia refers to the northern and landlocked regions spanning North, Central, and East Asia. It includes parts of western 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 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. 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.
Definition and usage
thumb|316x316px|Alternative conception of Inner Asia showing the Mongolian (or Mongolian-related) areas of Inner Asia that are represented in the Mongolian Digital Ethnography Archive.
"Inner Asia" today has a range of definitions and usages. 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.
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, although previous Chinese dynasties like the Han, Tang, and Ming dynasties 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 terms meaning "Inner Asia" in the languages of Inner Asia itself are all modern translations of terms in European languages, mostly Russian. According to Sinor:
<blockquote>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.</blockquote>
Origin of Inner Asian studies
thumb|200px|[[Gustav Kreitner, Béla Széchenyi, and Lajos Lóczy led an expedition to Inner Asia in 1877–1880.]]
Central Europe is the birthplace of Inner Asian studies in the West. Hungarian explorers and scholars of the early 19th century traveled to Inner Asia with an attempt to uncover their own Magyar prehistory. The linguist Sándor Kőrösi Csoma (1784 – 1842) was the first among these explorers; he later became a founder of Tibetology. Count Béla Széchenyi led a scientific expedition to Inner Asia in 1877–1880; he later founded the Hungarian journal Turán in 1913. The term "Inner Asian studies" (; ) first appeared in the masthead of Turán.