Turkmenistan is a landlocked nation of five million people in central Asia, bordering the Caspian Sea, between Iran and Kazakhstan.
The western and central low-lying desolate portions of the country make up the great Garagum (Kara-Kum) desert, which occupies over 80% of the country. The eastern part is plateau.
Its major environmental issues include:
- contamination of soil and groundwater with agricultural chemicals, pesticides;
- salination, water logging of soil due to poor irrigation methods;
- Caspian Sea pollution;
- diversion of a large share of the flow of the Amu Darya into irrigation contributes to that river's inability to replenish the Aral Sea; and,
- desertification
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Eastern Turkmenistan for centuries formed part of the Persian province of Khurasan. In medieval times Merv (today known as Mary) was one of the great cities of the Islamic world and an important stop on the Silk Road.
Annexed by Russia between 1865 and 1885, Turkmenistan became a Soviet republic in 1924.
It achieved independence upon the dissolution of the USSR in 1991.
Extensive hydrocarbon/natural gas reserves could prove a boon to this underdeveloped country once extraction and delivery projects are expanded. The Turkmen Government is actively working to diversify its gas export routes beyond the still dominant Russian pipeline network. In 2010, new gas export pipelines that carry Turkmen gas to China and to northern Iran began operating, effectively ending the Russian monopoly on Turkmen gas exports.
President for Life Saparmurat Nyyazow died in December 2006, and Turkmenistan held its first multi-candidate presidential election in February 2007. Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow, a deputy cabinet chairman under Nyyazow, emerged as the country's new president. Berdimuhamedow's term ends in February 2012, and he will run for his second term in an election held that month.
Geography
Location: entral Asia, bordering the Caspian Sea, between Iran and Kazakhstan
Geographic Coordinates: 40 00 N, 60 00 E
Area: 488,100 sq km (land: 469,930 sq km; water: 18,170 sq km)
Land Boundaries: 3,736 km (Afghanistan 744 km, Iran 992 km, Kazakhstan 379 km, Uzbekistan 1,621 km)
Coastline: 0 km; note - Turkmenistan borders the Caspian Sea (1,768 km)
Terrain: flat-to-rolling sandy desert with dunes rising to mountains in the south; low mountains along border with Iran; borders Caspian Sea in west. The highest point is Gora Ayribaba (3,139 m) and the lowest point Vpadina Akchanaya (-81 m) . Note: Sarygamysh Koli is a lake in northern Turkmenistan with a water level that fluctuates above and below the elevation of Vpadina Akchanaya (the lake has dropped as low as -110 m).
Climate: subtropical desert
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Ecology and Biodiversity
See:
- Central Asian southern desert
- Caspian lowland desert
- Badkhiz-Karabil semi-desert
- Kopet Dag semi-desert
- Kopet Dag woodlands and forest steppe
- Central Asian riparian woodlands
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Alai-Western Tian Shan steppe
- Biological diversity in the Irano-Anatolian
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Biological diversity in the mountains of Central Asia
- Caspian seal
Government
Government Type: defines itself as a secular democracy and a presidential republic; in actuality displays authoritarian presidential rule, with power concentrated within the presidential administration.
Capital: Ashgabat - 637,000 (2009)
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Administrative divisions: 5 provinces (welayatlar, singular - welayat) and 1 independent city (Ashgabat):
note: administrative divisions have the same names as their administrative centers (exceptions have the administrative center name following in parentheses)
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Independence Date: 27 October 1991 (from the Soviet Union)
Legal System: civil law system with Islamic law influences. Turkmenistan has not submitted an International Court of Justice (ICJ) jurisdiction declaration; and is a non-party state to the International criminal court (ICCt).
International Environmental Agreements
Turkmenistan is party to international agreements on: Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Desertification, Hazardous Wastes, and Ozone Layer Protection.
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A surprising stretch of green vegetation in otherwise pale, arid terrain, the Elburz Mountains (bottom center) in northern Iran capture the majority of the moisture coming from the Caspian Sea (image left). Several scattered fires (red dots) have been detected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) in this image from June 24, 2002. Along the shores of Turkmenistan, the Caspian Sea is swirling with blues and greens, which may be a mixture of sediment and microscopic marine plants called phytoplankton. In interior Turkmenistan, (left center) the vast Karakum Desert covers almost 80 percent of the country. Source: NASA. Credit: Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC |
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| Looking like a monstrous ogre with something gooey in its mouth, this enhanced satellite image shows the Dardzha Peninsula in western Turkmenistan, which lies among the shallow coastal terraces of the Caspian Sea. Strong winds create huge sand dunes near the water, some of which are partly submerged. Further inland, the dunes transition to low sand plains. Image courtesy of USGS. |
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Ashgabat, Turkmenistan lies in an oasis at the northern foot of the Kopet-Dag mountain range on the edge of the Karakum Desert in Central Asia. Ashgabat is the capital of Turkmenistan and the country’s largest city, with over 600,000 residents. In the 4th century BC on his way to India, Alexander the Great conquered the territory. A hundred and fifty years after Alexander’s conquest, Persia’s Parthian Kingdom established their capital in Nisa, now part of the modern day suburbs of Ashgabat. Turkmenistan’s government today is concerned with centralizing state control. The ethnic groups that make up modern day Turkmenistan are 85% Turkmen, 5% Uzbek, 4% Russian and 6% other. This Landsat 7 image of Ashgabat was acquired on August 29, 2002. This is a natural-color image using ETM+ bands 3, 2, and 1. Ashgabat falls on Landsat WRS-2 Path 160 Row 34. Source: NASA |
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| Presidential Palace in Ashgabat. Source: Wikimedia Commons. |
People and Society
Population: 4,997,503 (July 2011 est.)
Ethnic Groups: Turkmen 85%, Uzbek 5%, Russian 4%, other 6% (2003)
Age Structure:
0-14 years: 27.5% (male 696,749/female 679,936)15-64 years: 68.4% (male 1,692,885/female 1,724,019)65 years and over: 4.1% (male 88,590/female 115,324) (2011 est.)
Population Growth Rate: 1.138% (2011 est.)
Birthrate: 19.54 births/1,000 population (2011 est.)
Death Rate: 6.24 deaths/1,000 population (July 2011 est.)
Net Migration Rate: -1.92 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2011 est.)
Life Expectancy at Birth: 68.52 years
Total Fertility Rate: 2.16 children born/woman (2011 est.)
Languages: Turkmen (official) 72%, Russian 12%, Uzbek 9%, other 7%
Literacy (age 15 and over can read and write): 98.8% (1999 est.)
Urbanization: 50% of total population (2010) growing at an annual rate of change of 2.2% (2010-15 est.)
Water
Total Renewable Water Resources: 60.9 cu km (1997)
Freshwater Withdrawal: 24.65 cu km/yr (2% domestic, 1% industrial, 98% agricultural)
Per Capita Freshwater Withdrawal: 5,104 cu m/yr (2000)
Access to improved sources of drinking water: 83% of population
Access to improved sanitation facilities: 98% of population
See: Water profile of Turkmenistan
Agriculture
Agricultural products: cotton, grain; livestock
Irrigated Land: 18,000 sq km (2008)
Resources
Natural Resources: petroleum, natural gas, sulfur, salt
Land Use:
arable land: 4.51%
Permanent crops: 0.14%
other: 95.35% (2005)
Economy
Turkmenistan is largely a desert country with intensive agriculture in irrigated oases and sizeable gas and oil resources.
The two largest crops are cotton, most of which is produced for export, and wheat, which is domestically consumed. Although agriculture accounts for roughly 10% of GDP, it continues to employ nearly half of the country's workforce.
With an authoritarian ex-Communist regime in power and a tribally based social structure, Turkmenistan has taken a cautious approach to economic reform, hoping to use gas and cotton export revenues to sustain its inefficient economy.
Privatization goals remain limited.
From 1998-2005, Turkmenistan suffered from the continued lack of adequate export routes for natural gas and from obligations on extensive short-term external debt. At the same time, however, total exports rose by an average of roughly 15% per year from 2003-08, largely because of higher international oil and gas prices.
New pipelines to China and Iran, that began operation in early 2010, have given Turkmenistan additional export routes for its gas, although these new routes have not offset the sharp drop in export revenue since early 2009 from decreased gas exports to Russia.
Overall prospects in the near future are discouraging because of widespread internal poverty, endemic corruption, a poor educational system, government misuse of oil and gas revenues, and Ashgabat's reluctance to adopt market-oriented reforms.
In the past, Turkmenistan's economic statistics were state secrets. The new government has established a State Agency for Statistics, but GDP numbers and other figures are subject to wide margins of error. In particular, the rate of GDP growth is uncertain.
Since his election, President Berdimuhamedow unified the country's dual currency exchange rate, ordered the redenomination of the manat, reduced state subsidies for gasoline, and initiated development of a special tourism zone on the Caspian Sea.
Although foreign investment is encouraged, numerous bureaucratic obstacles impede international business activity.
GDP: (Purchasing Power Parity): $36.9 billion (2010 est.)
GDP: (Official Exchange Rate): $27.96 billion (2010 est.)
GDP- per capita (PPP): $7,500 (2010 est.)
GDP- composition by sector:
agriculture: 8.3%
industry: 21.8%
services: 69.9% (2010 est.)
Industries: natural gas, oil, petroleum products, textiles, food processing
Currency: Turkmen manat (TMM)
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