Turkmenistan 🇹🇲

Turkmenistan is an independent state in Central Asia, and a member of the United Nations. Unlike most entries, its formal name adds nothing to the short one. Ashgabat is the capital.

Around 7.5 million people live there, placing it 104th of 249 by population — between Hong Kong above it and Libya below. Measured only against its own subregion, it is 2nd of 5 in size and 4th in population.

By land area it covers 488,100 km², which ranks it 54th of the 249 countries and territories in this dataset — just behind Spain and just ahead of Cameroon. Put next to a country most people can picture, it is a fraction smaller than Spain.

Turkmenistan has no coastline of its own, so every ship-borne import and export crosses somebody else's border first. The good news is that the sea is only one frontier away: Iran has coastline, which makes it the natural gateway for freight heading to a port.

That geography has practical consequences. Landlocked countries carry higher freight costs than coastal ones because goods change hands, transport mode and jurisdiction more often, and because a neighbour's road, rail or customs problem becomes Turkmenistan's problem too. It is also why transit agreements with bordering states, and access to their ports, tend to matter more in Turkmenistan's foreign policy than the distance on a map would suggest.

Of the countries on Turkmenistan's borders, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are landlocked as well, so a route in that direction only moves the problem along. The remaining borders are the ones that lead, eventually, to salt water.

Coastal countries on the border:

• 🇮🇷 Iran

The coordinates the dataset gives are 40.0° N, 60.0° E, which puts it in the northern hemisphere, roughly 4,453 km from the equator, in what geographers would call temperate latitudes.

The United States, Spain and Greece sit at almost exactly the same latitude on other parts of the globe.

It borders 4 neighbours: Afghanistan, Iran, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The largest of them by area is Kazakhstan, while the most populous is Iran. Together those neighbours hold about 191.2 million people.

This is one of the world's landlocked countries. That is true of 45 of the 249 entries here, so all seaborne trade runs through a neighbour's ports. 3 of its neighbours, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, are landlocked too. You can see the full picture on the landlocked countries page.

Spread across 488,100 km², that works out at about 15 people per square kilometre, which makes it less crowded than the typical entry on this list. For comparison, the median entry on this list sits near 91 per square kilometre.

It recognises 2 languages: Russian and Turkmen. Russian, the first listed, is shared with 7 other entries worldwide.

The demonym is Turkmen, so residents are Turkmens.

Inside Asia it places 34th of 50 by population, and it accounts for 9.1% of everyone living in Central Asia.

Zoom in from the world to Central Asia and Turkmenistan sits 4th of 5 by population and 2nd by area. Its immediate company in that ordering is Tajikistan just above and Kyrgyzstan just below, which is a more honest comparison set than a global league table.

Uzbekistan is the largest of the group by population, and every entry in Central Asia has its own page here if you want to work through the whole neighbourhood rather than one country at a time.

• 🇹🇯 Tajikistan
• 🇰🇬 Kyrgyzstan
• 🇺🇿 Uzbekistan

It uses the Turkmenistan manat (m, TMT). It is issued for Turkmenistan alone.

Ashgabat is the seat of government and the answer most quizzes are looking for.

The top-level domain is .tm. The international dialling code is +993. In ISO terms it is tm in two letters and TKM in three.

Turkmenistan is one of the 192 UN member states in this dataset. The other 57 entries are territories, dependencies or observers, which is why totals on this site run to 249 rather than the familiar 195.

The Turkmenistan manat (TMT) is used only in Turkmenistan among the 249 entries on this site. Its own currency is one of the clearest markers of an economy that sets its own monetary policy rather than importing somebody else's.

Language reaches wider still. Russian is listed for 8 entries here, Turkmenistan among them, so a visitor who speaks it can be understood across a large part of the map. Shared language tends to outlive the empires, trade routes and migrations that spread it, which is why the linguistic map and the political one rarely line up.