Eastern Iranian in the context of "Central Asian"

Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian suffix "-stan" (meaning 'land') in both respective native languages and most other languages. The region is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the southwest, European Russia to the northwest, China and Mongolia to the east, Afghanistan and Iran to the south, and Siberia to the north. Together, the five Central Asian countries have a total population of around 76 million.

In the pre-Islamic and early Islamic eras (c. 1000 and earlier) Central Asia was inhabited predominantly by Iranian peoples, populated by Eastern Iranian-speaking Bactrians, Sogdians, Chorasmians, and the semi-nomadic Scythians and Dahae. As the result of Turkic migration, Central Asia also became the homeland for the Kazakhs, Kyrgyzs, Tatars, Turkmens, Uyghurs, and Uzbeks; Turkic languages largely replaced the Iranian languages spoken in the area, with the exception of Tajikistan and areas where Tajik is spoken.

The Massagetae or Massageteans, also known as Sakā Tigraxaudā or Orthocorybantians, were an ancient Eastern Iranian Saka people who inhabited the steppes of Central Asia and were part of the wider Scythian cultures. The Massagetae rose to power in the 8th to 7th centuries BCE, when they started a series of events with wide-reaching consequences by expelling the Scythians out of Central Asia and into the Caucasian and Pontic Steppes. The Massagetae are most famous for their queen Tomyris's alleged defeating and killing of Cyrus, the founder of the Persian Achaemenid Empire.

The Massagetae declined after the 3rd century BCE, after which they merged with some other tribes to form the Alans, a people who belonged to the larger Sarmatian tribal confederation, and who moved westwards into the Caucasian and European steppes, where they participated in the events of the Migration Period.

In the ancient Greco-Roman world, Sarmatia was a geographic region that encompassed the western Eurasian steppe. It was inhabited by the Sarmatians, an ancient Eastern Iranian equestrian nomadic people.

The Romans gave the name Sarmatia to the region which the ancient Greeks had formerly called Scythia because it had been inhabited by the Scythians. Beginning in the late 4th century BC the Sarmatians, a nomadic Iranian people related to the Eastern Iranic Scythians, moved from the east into the Pontic steppe, where they replaced the Scythians as the dominant power. Due to the Sarmatian incursion, "Sarmatia Europea" replaced "Scythia" as the name for the region.

The Pashtun tribes (Pashto: پښتانه قبايل), are tribes of the Pashtun people, a large Eastern Iranian ethnic group who speak the Pashto language and follow Pashtunwali, the social code of conduct for Pashtuns. They are found primarily in Afghanistan and Pakistan and form the world's largest tribal society, comprising over 60 million people and between 350 and 400 tribes and clans. They are traditionally divided into four tribal confederacies: the Sarbani (سړبني), the Bettani (بېټني), the Ghurghusht (غرغښت), the Karlani (کرلاڼي) and a few allied tribes of those that are Ismailkhel, Khel, Ludin, Sakzai, and Zai.

Folkloric genealogies trace the ancestors of the Pashtuns to Qais Abdur Rashid and his three sons Saṛban (سړبن), Bēṭ (بېټ), and Gharghax̌t (غرغښت) as well as an adopted son, not directly adopted by Qais Abdul Rashid, but the identity of the adoptee, Karlāņ (کرلاڼ), as well as the man who adopted him. According to some books written on the history of the Pashtuns, it is either unclear or controversial. The Karlani confederacy Ormur Baraki, who became the progenitor of the Karlani.

The Scythian religion refers to the mythology, ritual practices and beliefs of the Scythian cultures, a collection of closely related ancient Iranic peoples who inhabited Central Asia and the Pontic–Caspian steppe in Eastern Europe throughout Classical Antiquity, spoke the Scythian language (itself a member of the Eastern Iranic language family), and which included the Scythians proper, the Cimmerians, the Sarmatians, the Alans, the Sindi, the Massagetae and the Saka.

The Scythian religion is assumed to have been related to the earlier Proto-Indo-Iranian religion as well as to contemporary Eastern Iranic and Ossetian traditions, and to have influenced later Slavic, Hungarian and Turkic mythologies.