Caucasian is the term used to define a ethnic division of light-skinned (white) individuals, originating essentially from the European continent.
The term Caucasian was created as a synonym for "white race" because it is believed to have been in the region of Caucasus (located between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea) that the first white-skinned people would have emerged.
Even being used to refer to individuals with light skin tone, Caucasian can also be related to all those who belong to the Caucasus region.
Originally, the term "Caucasian race" was created by philosopher Christoph Meiners in the 18th century. However, it was only in the 19th century that this expression gained popularity, mainly due to the work of the German scientist and naturalist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach.
For Blumenbach, the Caucasian was one of the five "races" of human beings that existed. Most Europeans belonged to the "Caucasian race", while the Asians were the Mongols, the Africans were the Ethiopians, and there was still the "American race" and the Malays.
See also:meaning of race and ethnicity.
Currently, the division of human beings into "races" is not an accepted argument in science. It is not correct to say that there are different human races. The correct term to classify people who belong to a certain group of the same origin is ethnicity.
In fact, the ideas initially proposed by Blumenbach about "human races" were one of the main bases for the emergence of discriminatory thoughts and movements that promote racism, such as Nazism, by example.
Learn more about meaning of racism.