Turkmenistan

Turkmenistan is a country in Central Asia.

Most of the land is desert, with sand and dunes. Summers are very hot. The capital city is called Ashgabat.

Turkmenistan is a big country in Central Asia, the second largest in the region after Kazakhstan. It has no coast on the open ocean, but its western edge touches the Caspian Sea.

About nine-tenths of the land is desert. The Karakum, one of the largest sand deserts in the world, fills the middle of the country. Most people live in oases, green places with water, along the rivers and at the foot of the mountains. Ashgabat, the capital, lies close to the border with Iran. The 2022 national census counted about 7.1 million people in Turkmenistan.

Turkmenistan is a landlocked country in the southwest of Central Asia, second in area in the region after Kazakhstan (491,210 km²) and, after Kazakhstan, the least densely populated of the Central Asian states. Britannica divides it into an oasis region, with water, farms and industry, and a desert region covering nine-tenths of the territory, split between western Turkmenistan and the Karakum, one of the world's largest sand deserts.

The 2022 national census counted 7,057,841 people (State Committee of Turkmenistan on Statistics). More than half are under 30, and roughly half live in rural settlements. From 1925 to 1991 the country was the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic; it declared independence on October 27, 1991. It is a republic with two legislative houses, and Serdar Berdymukhammedov has been president since 2022.

Ashgabat is the capital city.

It has many white buildings. Long ago, a great city called Merv stood by a river. People traveled there on the Silk Road.

Ashgabat, the capital, sits in an oasis at the foot of the Kopet-Dag mountains. It is full of white marble buildings and golden statues, and its National Museum of History shows 50,000 years of the country's past. Türkmenabat, on the Amu Darya River, is the second largest city.

Near the city of Mary are the ruins of Ancient Merv, a great stop on the Silk Road, the old trade routes between China and the West. UNESCO calls it the oldest and best preserved of the oasis cities along those routes. In the north, at Kunya-Urgench, a minaret 60 meters tall still stands.

Ashgabat is the economic and cultural center of the Kopet-Dag oasis and the country's industrial core. Britannica notes its many marble buildings and golden statues, most built during Saparmurad Niyazov's presidency, and its National Museum of History, with exhibits covering 50,000 years. Türkmenabat (formerly Chardzhou), on the middle Amu Darya, is the second largest city.

Three UNESCO sites lie wholly in Turkmenistan. Ancient Merv (1999), near Mary, is the oldest and most completely preserved Silk Road oasis city in Central Asia: urban centers here go back to the 3rd millennium BC, and it was a capital of the Great Seljuk empire in the 11th–12th centuries, when the Mausoleum of Sultan Sanjar was built. The Parthian Fortresses of Nisa (2007), near Ashgabat, mark one of the earliest cities of the Parthian empire. Kunya-Urgench (2005), once capital of Khorezm, keeps monuments from the 11th to 16th centuries, including a 60-meter minaret.

The desert is very hot in summer.

In winter it can get very cold. Very little rain falls. Rivers and a long canal bring water to farms.

Turkmenistan is far from any ocean, so its weather swings from very hot to very cold. Summer days can reach 35 °C, and in the southeast Karakum it has reached 50 °C in the shade. In winter, the far south has dropped to −33 °C.

Rain is rare, from about 80 millimeters a year in the northwest desert to about 300 in the mountains. Most water comes from rivers such as the Amu Darya. The Karakum Canal, finished in 1967, carries water across the desert to the oases and is one of the largest irrigation canals in the world.

Four-fifths of Turkmenistan is the southern Turan Plain; mountains rise mainly in the south, in the Kugitangtau and the Kopet-Dag, a geologically young range prone to destructive earthquakes. Its position deep in Asia gives a strongly continental climate: the mean annual temperature is 14–16 °C, summer temperatures can reach 35 °C, the southeast Karakum has reached 50 °C in the shade, and Serhetabat, on the Afghan border, has fallen to −33 °C. Precipitation, mostly in spring, ranges from about 80 mm in the northwest to about 300 mm in the mountains.

The main rivers, the Amu Darya, Tejen, Morghāb and Atrek, run mostly in the east, away from the best soils. The Karakum Canal (1967), one of the world's largest irrigation and shipping canals, crosses the Morghāb and Tejen oases; water lost from canals to irrigation and evaporation adds to the shortfall of the lower Amu Darya. Pistachio woodlands grow in the Badkhyz reserve, and dense tugai forests of poplar, willow and reed line the Amu Darya.

Camels and sheep live with people in the desert.

Foxes live in the desert too. Wild cats called lynx live in the mountains. Swans and ducks spend the winter by the sea.

Much of the desert is too dry for many animals, but foxes and other hardy creatures live there. Lynx live in the mountains, and wild boars live in the thick forests along the rivers.

In winter, huge flocks of ducks, geese and swans come to the shore of the Caspian Sea. People keep camels, horses and Karakul sheep. Camels carry shepherds across the desert and pull water up from deep wells. Turkmen horses, such as the Akhal-Teke, are famous for their beauty, speed and stamina.

Much of the waterless land is hard for plants and animals. Britannica describes foxes in the desert, lynx in the mountains, and wild boars and many birds in the tugai, the dense floodplain forests of the Amu Darya; vast flocks of ducks, geese and swans winter on the Caspian's eastern shore. According to the IUCN, the Eurasian lynx, the wild boar and the mute swan all live in Turkmenistan today.

Livestock shapes life in the desert. Karakul sheep make up seven-tenths of the sheep, prized for pelts such as the black arabi and silver-gray shirazi. Dromedary camels carry shepherds, draw water from deep wells and give wool, milk and meat. The Akhal-Teke and Yomut horse breeds are famous for their looks, speed and endurance.

About 7 million people live in Turkmenistan.

Most people speak Turkmen. A favorite dish is rice cooked with meat. People celebrate the spring festival of Nowruz.

The 2022 census counted about 7.1 million people in Turkmenistan. Most are Turkmens, and there are smaller groups of Uzbeks, Russians, Kazakhs and Tatars. Turkmen is the official language. It is related to Turkish and has been written with Latin letters since 1993. Many people also speak Russian.

A favorite dish is ash, a pilaf of rice and meat, and mutton and sheep's milk are common foods. Near the Caspian Sea, people eat more fish. Turkmenistan grows lots of cotton, and the Morghāb oasis is famous for its handmade carpets. People celebrate Nowruz, the spring festival.

Turkmens make up more than four-fifths of the population, up from about two-thirds in 1970; there are smaller numbers of Russians, Uzbeks, Kazakhs and Tatars. Turkmen belongs to the southwestern (Oğuz) branch of the Turkic languages, closer to Turkish than to Uzbek or Kazakh, and has used the Latin script since 1993. The vast majority of people are Muslim, mostly Sunni, and the second largest faith is Russian Orthodox. Holidays include Nowruz, Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, and October 6 remembers the victims of the 1948 Ashgabat earthquake.

Cuisine reflects a nomadic past: ash, a rice-and-meat pilaf, mutton and sheep's milk, with fish near the Caspian and spices used sparingly. The economy rests on fine-staple cotton and on oil and natural gas; a 1,800 km gas pipeline to China opened in December 2009. The Morghāb oasis is famous for cotton, silk and handmade carpets, and written Turkmen literature dates at least to the 18th-century poet Magtymguly.