Turkmenistan, formerly known as Turkmenia, is a landlocked country in Central Asia, bordered by Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to the north, Afghanistan to the southeast, Iran to the south and southwest, and the Caspian Sea to the west. It is one of six independent Turkic states. Ashgabat is the capital and largest city. With over 7 million people, Turkmenistan is the 35th most-populous country in Asia and has the lowest population of the Central Asian republics while being one of the most sparsely populated nations located on the Asian continent.
Turkmenistan has long served as a thoroughfare for several empires and cultures. Merv is one of the oldest oasis-cities in Central Asia, and was once among the biggest cities in the world. It was also one of the great cities of the Islamic world and an important stop on the Silk Road. Annexed by the Russian Empire in 1881, Turkmenistan figured prominently in the anti-Bolshevik movement in Central Asia. In 1925, Turkmenistan became a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic (Turkmen SSR); it became independent after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Turkmenistan is widely criticized for its poor human rights record, including for its treatment of minorities, and its lack of press and religious freedoms. Since the independence declared from the Soviet Union in 1991, Turkmenistan has been ruled by repressive totalitarian regimes: that of President for Life Saparmurat Niyazov (also known as Türkmenbaşy or "Head of the Turkmens") until his death in 2006; Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow, who became president in 2007 after winning a non-democratic election (who had been the minister of health, vice-president, and then acting president previously); and his son Serdar, who won a subsequent 2022 presidential election described by international observers as neither free nor fair, and now shares power with his father.
Turkmenistan possesses the world's fifth-largest reserves of natural gas, and many leaks. Most of the country is covered by the Karakum Desert. Turkmenistan is an observer state in the Organisation of Turkic States, a founding member of TÜRKSOY (the International Organization of Turkic Culture) and a member of the United Nations.
The name of Turkmenistan (Turkmen: Türkmenistan) can be divided into two components: the ethnonym Türkmen and the Persian suffix -stan meaning "place of" or "country". The name "Turkmen" comes from Turk, plus the Sogdian suffix -men, meaning "almost Turk", in reference to their status outside the Turkic dynastic mythological system.
Muslim chroniclers like Ibn Kathir suggested that the etymology of Turkmenistan came from the words Türk and iman (Arabic: إيمان, lit. 'faith/belief'); this is in reference to a massive conversion to Islam of two hundred thousand households in the year 971.
Turkmenistan declared its independence from the Soviet Union after the independence referendum in 1991. As a result, the constitutional law was adopted on 27 October of that year and Article 1 established the new name of the state: Turkmenistan (Türkmenistan / Түркменистан).
A common name for the Turkmen SSR was Turkmenia (Russian: Туркмения, romanization: Turkmeniya), used in some reports of the country's independence.
Historically inhabited by Indo-Iranians, Turkmenistan's written history begins with its annexation by the Achaemenid Empire of ancient Iran. After centuries of turmoil, over a thousand years later, in the 8th century AD, Turkic-speaking Oghuz tribes moved from Mongolia into present-day Central Asia. Part of a powerful confederation of tribes, these Oghuz formed the ethnic basis of the modern Turkmen population. In the 10th century, the name "Turkmen" was first applied to Oghuz groups that accepted Islam and began to occupy present-day Turkmenistan. There they were under the dominion of the Seljuk Empire, which was composed of Oghuz groups living in present-day Iran and Turkmenistan. Oghuz groups in the service of the empire played an important role in the spreading of Turkic culture when they migrated westward into present-day Azerbaijan and eastern Turkey.
In the 12th century, Turkmen and other tribes overthrew the Seljuk Empire. In the next century, the Mongols took over the more northern lands where the Turkmens had settled, scattering the Turkmens southward and contributing to the formation of new tribal groups. The sixteenth and eighteenth centuries saw a series of splits and confederations among the nomadic Turkmen tribes, who remained staunchly independent and inspired fear in their neighbors. By the 16th century, most of those tribes were under the nominal control of two sedentary Uzbek khanates, Khiva and Bukhoro. Turkmen soldiers were an important element of the Uzbek militaries of this period. In the 19th century, raids and rebellions by the Yomud Turkmen group resulted in that group's dispersal by the Uzbek rulers. In 1855 the Turkmen tribe of Teke led by Gowshut-Khan defeated the invading army of the Khan of Khiva Muhammad Amin Khan and in 1861 the invading Persian army of Nasreddin-Shah.
In the second half of the 19th century, northern Turkmens were the main military and political power in the Khanate of Khiva. According to Paul R. Spickard, "Prior to the Russian conquest, the Turkmen were known and feared for their involvement in the Central Asian slave trade."
Russian forces began occupying Turkmen territory late in the 19th century. From their Caspian Sea base at Krasnovodsk (now Türkmenbaşy), the Russians eventually overcame the Uzbek khanates. In 1879, the Russian forces were defeated by the Teke Turkmens during the first attempt to conquer the Ahal area of Turkmenistan. However, in 1881, the last significant resistance in Turkmen territory was crushed at the Battle of Geok Tepe, and shortly thereafter Turkmenistan was annexed, together with adjoining Uzbek territory, into the Russian Empire. In 1916, the Russian Empire's participation in World War I resonated in Turkmenistan, as an anticonscription revolt swept most of Russian Central Asia. Although the Russian Revolution of 1917 had little direct impact, in the 1920s Turkmen forces joined Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and Uzbeks in the so-called Basmachi rebellion against the rule of the newly formed Soviet Union. In 1921 the tsarist province of Transcaspia (Russian: Закаспийская область, 'Transcaspian Oblast') was renamed Turkmen Oblast (Russian: Туркменская область), and in 1924, the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic was formed from it. By the late 1930s, Soviet reorganization of agriculture had destroyed what remained of the nomadic lifestyle in Turkmenistan, and Moscow controlled political life. The Ashgabat earthquake of 1948 killed over 110,000 people, amounting to two-thirds of the city's population.
During the next half-century, Turkmenistan played its designated economic role within the Soviet Union and remained outside the course of major world events. Even the major liberalization movement that shook Russia in the late 1980s had little impact. However, in 1990, the Supreme Soviet of Turkmenistan declared sovereignty as a nationalist response to perceived exploitation by Moscow. Although Turkmenistan was ill-prepared for independence and then-communist leader Saparmurat Niyazov preferred to preserve the Soviet Union, in October 1991, the fragmentation of that entity forced him to call a national referendum that approved independence. On 26 December 1991, the Soviet Union ceased to exist. Niyazov continued as Turkmenistan's chief of state, replacing communism with a unique brand of independent nationalism reinforced by a pervasive cult of personality. A 1994 referendum and legislation in 1999 abolished further requirements for the president to stand for re-election (although in 1992 he completely dominated the only presidential election in which he ran, as he was the only candidate and no one else was allowed to run for the office), making him effectively president for life. During his tenure, Niyazov conducted frequent purges of public officials and abolished organizations deemed threatening. Throughout the post-Soviet era, Turkmenistan has taken a neutral position on almost all international issues. Niyazov eschewed membership in regional organizations such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, and in the late 1990s he maintained relations with the Taliban and its chief opponent in Afghanistan, the Northern Alliance. From 1993 to 2019, citizens received government-provided electricity, water and natural gas free of charge. Niyazov offered limited support to the military campaign against the Taliban following the 11 September 2001 attacks. In 2002 an alleged assassination attempt against Niyazov led to a new wave of security restrictions, dismissals of government officials, and restrictions placed on the media. Niyazov accused exiled former foreign minister Boris Shikhmuradov of having planned the attack.