Ashgabat

The city was founded in 1881 as a Russian border fortress on the site of an ancient oasis along the Silk Road. It is located 40 kilometers from the modern border with Iran. In 1924, Ashgabat became the capital of the newly established Turkmen SSR. The most tragic chapter in the city's history was the devastating earthquake of 1948, which almost completely destroyed Ashgabat and claimed more than one hundred thousand lives. After Turkmenistan gained independence in 1991, the city underwent extensive reconstruction: during the rule of Saparmurat Niyazov and his successor, Ashgabat was built up with a huge number of white marble structures, earning the city recognition from the Guinness Book of World Records as the city with the world's highest concentration of white marble buildings. According to the 2020 census, the population is approximately one million.