Abstract
A 2010 survey of more than 10 000 students from 18 countries showed that Central Asia was virtually absent from their representations of the world. In order to check whether this was also the case in the representations of students from this region, this survey was replicated in Kazakhstan, while nevertheless making the assumption that a Central Asian region would be largely represented by the students. While the results confirm important aspects of the theory of social representations of space, they also provide some original insights, showing in particular the very large place given to States, and in particular the Kazakh State, in the breakdown of the World. The prominence of States in Kazakh students' representations of the World can be analysed as a sign of the appropriation of the nation-state model by Kazakh students, some thirty years after the country's independence.