http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MongoloidMongoloid (or less often Sinoid) is a racial classification including peoples of North Asia, Central Asia, East Asia, the Pacific Oceania, the Americas, Greenland, and even a few of Eastern Europe. Earlier terms include Mongolian race and Asiatic. Some definitions have not included Native Americans.
Racial classification and even the existence of race is controversial. Please see Race, Validity of human races, Race (historical definitions), Scientific racism, and Linnaeus for discussion of these subjects.
The -oid racial terms are now controversial in both technical and nontechnical contexts and are likely to give offense no matter how they are used. [1] Mongoloid is considered "an archaic term" by a modern anthropological textbook The Human Species copyrighted in 2003, on page 126.
Mongoloid properly applies to physical traits and not to contemporary or historic definitions of racial or social groups. Some current terms for the latter are Asian, East Asian, Southeast Asian, and Oriental; however the range of Mongoloid does not correspond exactly to any one of these. While East and most Southeast Asians are physically Mongoloid, most South Asians are not.
Since people with the disability Down syndrome have some superficial Mongoloid facial features, the term "Mongoloid" was once also used as a synonym for "retarded." This usage, once neutral, is now considered offensive.