What does the ...STAN means in words like Pakistan, Kazakhstan,Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, etc?

Question

Surley there has to be some correlation in that part of the name.

Answer 1

"Stan" means land where certain nations lives, from turk languages(i do not mean turkish), for example Kazakhstan-"Land of kazakhs", Uzbekistan-"Land of Uzbeks" e.t.c.

Answer 2

Stan is a suffix, derived from the Persian language meaning "place of"

Actually Maple Leaf below is incorrect - Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan does not follow his rule...

Answer 3

I believe it means something along the lines of state. They are the states that resulted from the breakup of the soviet union

Well not all of them are from the break up, but thats an example. It means something like 'state'

Stan is formed from the old Iranian root *sta- "to stand, stay," and means "place where one stays," i.e. homeland or country. Names such as Afghani-stan, Tajiki-stan, Hindu-stan are formed by adding this suffix to the usually pluralized names of the people living in that country, as the Afghani (one Afghan) live in Afghanistan. However, Pakistan was formed from the initial letters of "Punjab," "Afghanistan," and "Kashmir" and the questionably extended suffix -istan. So, now there is an extended suffix floating around that may be added to new countries, the name of whose people is not pluralized by the suffix -i.

Answer 4

Land?

We have engLAND, ireLAND, greenLAND...

Answer 5

Smart question. as a Pakistani native i can confirm that -stan does indeed mean land, literally. 'Pak' means 'pure' in the native language. thus, Pakistan is literally 'land of the pure'...  

Answer 6

First of all, it's not "stan" that is the suffix, rather it is "istan", which means "land" in farsi/urdu languages.

Pak = pure, Istan = land, Pakistan = the land of the pure

Uzbek = the ethnic people Uzbeks, Istan = land, Uzbekistan = the land of the Uzbeks

... and so on.