Azerbaijan currently has diplomatic relations with 160 countries: Afghanistan, Bahrain, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, the People's Republic of China, Denmark, Egypt, France, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Greece, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Kuwait, Libya, Luxembourg, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia, Netherlands, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Poland, Qatar, Republic of India, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tajikistan, Togo, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.

No seabed boundary with Turkmenistan in the Caspian Sea has been agreed upon and the usage of Caspian Sea water is a matter that remains unsettled by international agreement.

* Turkmenistan has an embassy in Astana.

As in the Soviet era, Kyrgyzstan has the right to 25 % of the water that originates in its territory, but the new agreement allows Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan unlimited use of the water that flows into them from Kyrgyzstan, with no compensation for the nation at the source.

Independence came in 1991, as Saparmurat Niyazov, a former local communist party boss, declared himself absolute ruler for life as Turkmenbashi or Leader of the Turkmen and transitioned the newly independent Turkmenistan into an authoritarian state under his absolute control and has thus far resisted the democratization that has influenced many of the other former Soviet Republics.

The territory of Turkmenistan has been populated since ancient times, especially the areas near oasis of Merv, where traces of human settlements have been found.

Like other CIS republics, Turkmenistan has established an Environmental Fund based on revenues collected from environmental fines, but the fines generally are too low to accumulate significant revenue.

According to estimates, as a result of desertification processes and pollution, biological productivity of the ecological systems in Turkmenistan has declined by 30 % to 50 % in recent decades.

The type of desertification caused by year-round pasturing of cattle has been termed the most devastating in Central Asia, with the gravest situations in Turkmenistan and the Kazakh steppe along the eastern and northern coasts of the Caspian Sea.

Turkmenistan has announced plans to clean up some of the Aral Sea fallout with financial support from the World Bank.

Turkmenistan has a single-party system, but has, according to the government, begun a transition towards a multi-party system.

His book, Ruhnama ( or Rukhnama ), which is revered in Turkmenistan almost like a holy text, has been translated into 32 languages and distributed for free among major international libraries.

In the post-Soviet era, Turkmenistan ’ s industrial sector has been dominated increasingly by the fuel and cotton processing industries to the detriment of light industry.

Turkmenistan has a state-controlled press and monitored communication systems.

The Tejen – Serakhs – Mashhad railroad, built in 1996 by Turkmenistan and Iran, has become a vital link of Central Asian, Russian, and European railroad systems with South Asia and the Persian Gulf.

Turkmenistan has one of the lowest gas prices in the world, at $ 0. 72 per gallon ($ 0. 19 per liter ).

Although the Government of Turkmenistan claims to favour trade with and export to the United States and Turkey, it has significant commercial relationships with Russia and Iran and a growing cross-border trade with Afghanistan.

Turkmenistan has no common land or Caspian Sea border with Russia.

Turkmenistan is a partner country of the EU INOGATE energy programme, which has four key topics: enhancing energy security,

Turkmenistan has the fourth largest gas reserves and has been actively on the lookout to build transportation routes to large markets and the route through Afghanistan has been the most feasible and economical.

Tribes of horse-breeding Iranian Scythians drifted into the territory of Turkmenistan at about 2000 BC, possibly from the Russian steppes and moved along the outskirts of the Karakum desert into Iran, Syria, and Anatolia.

Turkmenistan is largely desert country with nomadic cattle raising, intensive agriculture in irrigated oases, and huge gas and oil resources.

The Hari River or Harirud ( Harī Rūd, sometimes Rudkhaneh-ye Hari Rud ) is a river flowing 1100 kilometers from the mountains of central Afghanistan to Turkmenistan, where it disappears in the Kara-Kum desert.

Covering much of present day Turkmenistan, the Karakum Desert lies east of the Caspian Sea, with the Aral Sea to the north and the Amu Darya river and the Kyzyl Kum desert to the northeast.

In August 1879, he was commander of the Turkestan Rifle Brigade, which made an 18-day march across 500 miles of desert to join General Mikhail Skobelev ’ s invasion of Turkmenistan.

The Turan Depression, Turan Lowland or Turanian Basin is a low-lying desert basin region stretching from southern Turkmenistan through Uzbekistan to Kazakhstan.

The Persian Plateau ( Iran, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Turkmenistan ) has a diverse terrain, it is mainly mountainous with portions of desert, steppe and tropical forest on the coast of the Caspian Sea.

It rises in north-western Afghanistan and runs north-west towards the Murghab District, which takes it name from the river, and then the Kara Kum desert in Turkmenistan, where it peters out.

* Murghab River ( Afghanistan ), the river that rises in northwestern Afghanistan and ends in the Kara Kum desert of Turkmenistan

Saparmurat Niyazov, the recently deceased president of Turkmenistan, ordered the construction of a huge ice palace near the capital city of Aşgabat in April 2004, a remarkable project considering Turkmenistan's climate.

It is bordered by Pakistan in the south and the east, Iran in the west, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in the north, and China in the far northeast.

Afghan Turkestan is a region in northern Afghanistan, on the border with the former Soviet republics of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

The Commonwealth of Independent States ( CIS ) is a loose alliance or confederation consisting of 10 of the 15 former Soviet Republics, the exceptions being Turkmenistan ( a CIS associate member ), Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Georgia.

It is situated in the valley of the Hari River, which flows from the mountains of central Afghanistan to the Karakum Desert in Turkmenistan.

In Repetek ( Turkmenistan ), there live seven species of scorpions ( of which Pectinibuthus birulai is endemic ) in temperatures which vary from.

A daf is a large-sized tambourine used to accompany both popular and classical music in Iran, Azerbaijan, Turkey ( where it is called tef ), Uzbekistan ( where it's called childirma ), India ( where it is known as the Dafli ) and Turkmenistan.

While the ancient history of Turkmenistan is largely shrouded in mystery, its past since the arrival of Indo-European Iranian tribes around 2000 BC is often the starting point of the area's discernible history.

Turkmenistan is a landlocked country in Central Asia, bordering the Caspian Sea to the west, Iran and Afghanistan to the south, Uzbekistan to the north-east, and Kazakhstan to the north-west.

Turkmenistan is slightly larger than California in territory, occupying 488, 100 km².

The Kopet Dag Range is a region characterized by foothills, dry and sandy slopes, mountain plateaus, and steep ravines ; Mount Şahşah ( 2, 912 m ), also known as Mount Rizeh, southwest of Ashgabat, is the highest elevation of the Kopet Dag Range in Turkmenistan.

Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, environmental regulation is largely unchanged in Turkmenistan.

The Demographics of Turkmenistan is about the demographic features of the population of Turkmenistan, including population growth, population density, ethnicity, education level, health, economic status, religious affiliations, and other aspects of the population.

The politics of Turkmenistan takes place in the framework of a presidential republic, whereby the President of Turkmenistan is both head of state and head of government.

Turkmenistan is sometimes described as a " reclusive ex-Soviet nation ".

The Democratic Party of Turkmenistan is the only one legally permitted.

Turkmenistan is dominated by a pervasive cult of personality extolling the late president as Türkmenbaşy (" Leader of all Turkmen "), a title he assumed in 1993.