Ashgabat

Ashgabat is a big city in Turkmenistan, a country in Central Asia.

Mountains rise on one side of the city. A big desert spreads out on the other.

Ashgabat is the capital of Turkmenistan, a country in Central Asia east of the Caspian Sea. The city lies on the northern foothills of the Kopet Dag mountains, close to the border with Iran, and the Karakum Desert stretches away to its north.

Turkmenistan's census of December 2022 counted 1,030,063 people in Ashgabat, which is divided into four districts.

Encyclopaedia Universalis places Ashgabat on the northern piedmont of the Kopet Dag, bordered to the north by the Karakum Desert, on the edge of the national territory near the Iranian frontier.

City Population's table of the 2022 census (17 December 2022) gives 1,030,063 people in Ashgabat city, split among four districts: Bagtyýarlyk (309,619), Köpetdag (278,840), Berkararlyk (266,425) and Büzmeýin (175,179). Universalis compares this with 414,000 in the 1989 census and notes that part of the growth comes from enlarging the city's territory, now about 420 km².

Many buildings in Ashgabat are covered in shiny white stone called marble.

The city also has a giant Ferris wheel inside a building!

In 2013 Guinness World Records gave Ashgabat the record for the highest density of white marble-clad buildings. It counted 543 new buildings covered in white marble in an area of 22 square kilometers.

In 2012 Ashgabat also set the record for the largest Ferris wheel indoors. The wheel is 47.60 meters tall and has 24 cabins, each with six seats, inside a round casing of glass and white steel.

Guinness's 2013 record describes a re-styling effort led by Turkmenistan's government: 543 new buildings in a 22 km² area clad with 4,513,584 m² of white marble, or one square meter of marble for every 4.87 m² of land. It adds that the main avenue, Bitarap Türkmenistan Şaýoly, was 12.6 km long and lined with 170 marble-clad buildings.

The Ferris wheel, measured on 30 April 2012, stands 47.60 m tall inside a casing 57 m across. Guinness's news report says the same structure houses the Alem entertainment center, with a bowling alley, cinema screens, a restaurant and a planetarium.

Ashgabat is a dry place. Since 1962, water has come to the city in a canal.

The city built a giant wheel inside a building. It opened with a planetarium too.

Ashgabat gets very little rain, and since 1962 water has reached the city through the Karakum Canal.

The city has grown fast: from about 414,000 people in 1989 to about 1,030,000 in 2022. Universalis describes new neighborhoods of homes going up on its southern edge. The Alem entertainment center, home of the giant indoor Ferris wheel, opened in 2012 with a bowling alley, cinemas, a restaurant and a planetarium.

Universalis notes that the rebuilt city has been supplied by the Karakum Canal since 1962, and that new residential districts are going up on its southern outskirts; it also describes the Soviet-era neighborhoods of single houses and large apartment blocks (mikroraion).

The official census counts rose from 414,000 (1989) to 1,030,000 (2022), partly because the city's territory was enlarged. Guinness's 2012 news report describes the Alem center's glass and white-steel casing, with 24 six-seat cabins on the wheel, a bowling alley, cinema screens, a restaurant and a planetarium.