Turkmenistan, formally the Republic of Turkmenistan, is a nation in Central Asia, flanked by Kazakhstan toward the northwest, Uzbekistan toward the north and east, Afghanistan toward the southeast, Iran toward the south and southwest, and the Caspian Sea toward the west. Ashgabat is the capital and biggest city. Turkmenistan has been at the junction of civic establishments for a considerable length of time. In medieval occasions, Merv was one of the extraordinary urban areas of the Islamic world and a significant stop on the Silk Road, a procession course utilized for exchange with China until the mid-fifteenth century. Attached by the Russian Empire in 1881, Turkmenistan later figured unmistakably in the counter Bolshevik development in Central Asia. In 1925, Turkmenistan turned into a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic (Turkmen SSR); it wound up free upon the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991. Turkmenistan has the world's 6th biggest stores of gaseous petrol assets. A large portion of the nation is secured by the Karakum (Black Sand) Desert.

Ashgabat, named Poltoratsk somewhere in the range of 1919 and 1927, is the capital and the biggest city of Turkmenistan in Central Asia, arranged between the Karakum Desert and the Kopet Dag mountain extend. The city was established in 1881, and made the capital of the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic in 1924. A great part of the city was devastated by the 1948 Ashgabat seismic tremor yet has since seen broad redesign under President Saparmurat Niyazov's urban restoration venture. The Karakum Canal goes through the city, conveying waters from the Amu Darya from east to west. In spite of the fact that the name actually signifies "city of affection" or "city of commitment" in present day Persian, the name may be altered through people historical background. Turkmen student of history Ovez Gundogdiyev trusts that the name returns to the Parthian time, third century BC, getting from the name of the originator of the Parthian Empire, Arsaces I of Parthia, in Persian Ashk-Abad (the city of Ashk/Arsaces).