Kras (German: Karst; Italian: Carso), also known as the Classical Karst or the Kras Plateau, is a limestone borderline plateau region in southwestern Slovenia extending into northeastern Italy. Different terms for karst topography exist in other languages - for example, yanrong in Chinese and tsingy in Malagasy (Jennings, Ch.1 p.1). The international community has settled on karst, the German name for Kras, a region in Slovenia partially extending into Italy where it is called Carso and where the first scientific research of a karst topography was made. The name has a pre-Indo-European origin (from karra meaning "stone") and in antiquity it was called Carusardius in Latin. The Slovenian form grast is attested since 1177, and the Croatian kras since 1230.