Central Asia, Turkestan, Turan: many words for a single land

First presented in Brno in November 2009, this article by Isabella Damiani was then published as a Working Paper by EastBordNet. 
 
The topic is the concept of Central Asia and the relativity of this term: how and when this expression is born and why it takes the upper hand in comparison to the other less used toponimis as "Turkestan", "Turan" or "Tartary".
A brief history of the centrasiatic toponomastic, tightly connected to the geopolitics of the region. A work allowing to mainly analyze how the instrumentalization of the western cartography has let the creation of ideas, mental representations and centrasiatic identities.