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.

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.

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.

Turkmenistan has a cold desert climate that is severely continental.

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.

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.

It is located in Central Asia in the doab between the rivers Amu Darya and Syr Darya, and is divided between Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and ( partly ) Turkmenistan.

From 1902 to 1904, in addition to the building of the Shrine of the Báb that ` Abdu ' l-Bahá was directing, he started to put into execution two different projects ; the restoration of the House of the Báb in Shiraz, Iran and the construction of the first Bahá ' í House of Worship in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan.

Wresting control of Turkmenistan from the Sasanian Empire in the 5th century AD, Malkar's " Dulo " Confederation of Ten Tribes caused a migration of Khurasanis into Dagestan as the Caucasian Avars.

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.

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.

There are petroleum pipelines from Bagram into Uzbekistan and Shindand into Turkmenistan.

The bribes also took the form of luxury European vacations, armored Mercedes vehicles for high-ranking government officials and a birthday gift to the then notorious dictator of Turkmenistan, Turkmenbashi ( Saparmurat Niyazov ), including a golden box and 10, 000 copies of his personal manifesto, Ruhnama, translated into German.

In the early 1970s, the first section of a major irrigation project was completed to divert water from the Amu Darya River in Turkmenistan eastward into Uzbekistan in order to irrigate the land surrounding Qarshi.

Buddhism was spread among the Turkic people during the 2nd and 3rd centuries BCE into modern-day Pakistan, Kashmir, Afghanistan, eastern and coastal Iran, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan.

After the Russian Revolution, a Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of the Soviet Union was created, which was eventually split into the Kazakh SSR ( Kazakhstan ), Kyrgyz SSR ( Kyrgyzstan ), Tajik SSR ( Tajikistan ), Turkmen SSR ( Turkmenistan ) and Uzbek SSR ( Uzbekistan ).

The Kara-Khanid cultural model that combined nomadic Turkic culture with Islamic, sedentary institutions spread east into former Kara-Khoja and Tangut territories and west and south into the subcontinent, Khorasan ( Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Northern Iran ), Golden Horde territories ( Tataristan ) and Turkey.

* the Soviet Union's dissolution into its original ethnic groupings which formed their own nations of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.

Geographically this continuum starts at the Balkans in the west with Balkan Turkish, includes Turkish in Turkey and Azerbaijani language in Azerbaijan, extends into Iran with Azeri and Khalaj, into Iraq with Turkmen, across Central Asia to include Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, to southern Regions of Tajikistan and into Afghanistan.

The pipeline will transport Caspian Sea natural gas from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan into Pakistan and then to India.

The main route starts in Helsinki, Finland, and continues through Russia to the Caspian Sea, where it splits into three routes: a western route through Azerbaijan, Armenia, and western Iran ; a central route across the Caspian Sea to Iran via ferry ; and an eastern route through Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan to eastern Iran.

In its fullest extent, the state expanded into territories which today comprise most of Iran, Iraq, Turkmenistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey, western Afghanistan and southwestern Pakistan.

The striped hyena's historical range encompasses Africa north of and including the Sahel zone, eastern Africa south into Tanzania, the Arabian Peninsula and the Middle East up to the Mediterranean shores, Turkey, Iraq, the Caucasus ( Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia ), Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan ( excluding the higher areas of Hindukush ) and the Indian Subcontinent.

* Provinces of Turkmenistan ( singular: welaýat, plural: welaýatlar ), subdivided into districts ()

In response to the internationally recognized environmental crisis of the rapid desiccation of the Aral Sea, the five states sharing the Aral Sea Basin ( Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan ) are developing a strategy to end the crisis.

The importance of carpets in the culture of Turkmenistan is such that the national flag features a vertical red stripe near the hoist side, containing five carpet guls ( designs used in producing rugs ).

* It has been proposed by Iran that the Caspian Sea be a pentadominium of Russia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan ( its five littoral states ), but it is not in fact.

The waxing crescent moon symbolizes the hope of the country for a shining future and the stars represent the five provinces ( welayatlar ) of Turkmenistan – Ahal, Balkan, Dashhowuz, Lebap, and Mary.

In modern context, all definitions of Middle Asia consensually include the five republics of the former Soviet Union: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and adjacent steppe areas of Russia.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, five Central Asian countries gained independence — Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.

Unfortunately for the Jadids, by the late 1930s, the Bolshevik nation building program resulted in the division of Turkestan into five distinct national territories: Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Kyrgyzstan.

Central Asia is deemed to consist of the five former Soviet Socialist Republics: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.