Ashgabat in the context of "Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic"

Turkmenistan 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.

The Köpet Dag (Turkmen: Köpetdag [ˌkœpɛtˈdɑːʁ]; Persian: کپه‌داغ), also known as the Turkmen–Khorasan Mountain Range, is a mountain range on the border between Turkmenistan and Iran that extends about 650 kilometres (400 mi) along the border southeast of the Caspian Sea, stretching northwest-southeast from near the Caspian Sea in the northwest to the Hari River in the southeast. In the southwest it borders on the parallel eastern endings of the Alborz mountains being together part of the much larger Alpide belt. The highest peak of the range in Turkmenistan is the Mount Rizeh (Kuh-e Rizeh), located at the southwest of the capital Ashgabat and stands at 2,940 metres (9,646 ft). The highest Iranian summit is Mount Quchan (Kuh-e Quchan) at 3,191 metres (10,469 ft).

The Iran–Turkmenistan border is the national border separating the countries of Iran and Turkmenistan. It is 1,148 km (713 miles) in length and runs from the Caspian Sea to the tripoint with Afghanistan. The Turkmen capital Ashgabat is only 15 miles north of this boundary, and Mashhad (Iran's second largest city) is 47 miles south of it.

Nisa (Ancient Greek: Νῖσος, Νίσα, Νίσαιον; Turkmen: Nusaý; also Parthaunisa) was an ancient settlement of the Parthians, located near the Bagyr neighborhood of Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, 18 km west of the city center. Nisa is described by some as the first seat of the Arsacid Empire. It is traditionally assumed to have been founded by Arsaces I (reigned c. 250 BC–211 BC) and was reputedly the royal residence of the Parthian kings, although it has not been established that the fortress at Nisa was either a royal residence or a mausoleum.

In 2007, the fortress was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

The 1948 Ashgabat earthquake was on 6 October with a surface-wave magnitude of 7.3 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme), in Turkmenistan near Ashgabat. Due to censorship by the Soviet government, the event was not widely reported in the Soviet media. Historians tend to agree that the ban on reporting the extent of the casualties and damage did not allow the Soviet government to allocate enough financial resources to respond adequately. It was the strongest earthquake recorded in Turkmenistan.

The Karakum Canal (Qaraqum Canal, Kara Kum Canal, Garagum Canal; Russian: Каракумский канал, Karakumskiy Kanal, Turkmen: Garagum kanaly, قاراقۇم کانالیٛ, Гарагум каналы) in Turkmenistan is one of the largest irrigation and water supply canals in the world. Started in 1954, and completed in 1988, it is navigable over much of its 1,375-kilometre (854 mi) length, and carries 13 cubic kilometres (3.1 cu mi) of water annually from the Amu-Darya River across the Karakum Desert in Turkmenistan. The canal opened up huge new tracts of land to agriculture, especially to cotton monoculture heavily promoted by the Soviet Union, and supplying Ashgabat with a major source of water. The canal is also a major factor leading to the Aral Sea environmental disaster. The Soviet regime planned to at some time extend the canal to the Caspian Sea.

Quchan (Persian: قوچان; pronounced [quˈtʃɑːn, ɢoˈtʃɒːn]) is a city in the Central District of Quchan County, Razavi Khorasan province, Iran, serving as capital of both the county and the district. It is approximately 97 km south of the border city of Ashgabat, capital city of the neighboring country Turkmenistan.

The city of Quchan has been considered in the past due to its historical location, including having 140 historical monuments and having 32 monuments registered in the list of national monuments and 20 attractive tourist areas. Nader Shah was assassinated on 20 June 1747, at Quchan in Khorasan.

ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's journeys to the West were a series of trips ʻAbdu'l-Bahá undertook starting at the age of 66, journeying continuously from Palestine to the West between 1910 and 1913. ʻAbdu'l-Bahá was the eldest son of Baháʼu'lláh, founder of the Baháʼí Faith, and suffered imprisonment with his father starting at the age of 8; he suffered various degrees of privation for almost 55 years, until the Young Turk Revolution in 1908 freed religious prisoners of the Ottoman Empire. Upon the death of his father in 1892, ʻAbdu'l-Bahá had been appointed as the successor, authorized interpreter of Bahá'u'lláh's teachings, and Center of the Covenant of the Baháʼí Faith.

At the time of his release, the major centres of Baháʼí population and scholarly activity were mostly in Iran, with other large communities in Baku, Azerbaijan, Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, and Tashkent, Uzbekistan.