Countries and Other Areas

The Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs deals with U.S. foreign policy and U.S. diplomatic relations with these countries and geographic entities: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan .  Information about South and Central Asian countries (including dependencies and areas of special sovereignty) is available through the links at left. The list is sorted alphabetically by short-form names. For long-form names, please refer to the Background Notes or see the list of Independent States of the World.