1,206-CITY ATLASSOURCE-BACKED CITY REFERENCE
Turkmenistan
Compare this sourced profile of Ashgabat, Turkmenistan before planning. Stable fields identify the place; confirm current transport, access and opening details with official sources.
01What the data says — and does not say
This page separates the checked GeoNames row for Ashgabat—1,030,063, Asia/Ashgabat, and source coordinates—from live travel claims. Those fields identify and compare the record; they do not prove current transport, accessibility, census totals, or a City Atlas Club visit.
Wikidata's localized description: capital city of Turkmenistan.
02This city's dataset fingerprint
The source row behind Ashgabat is GeoNames ID 162183. Its recorded administrative path is Ashgabat → Turkmenistan, and GeoNames classifies the place as a capital of a political entity. Ashgabat occurs once as a primary city label in this atlas sample; the numeric ID remains the durable source key if names change. The city row itself was updated 2026-04-15; that date belongs to the source record, not to every transport or visitor detail in the real destination.
Within the fixed 1,206-record atlas, Ashgabat ranks 527 by recorded population. Inside the 1 selected Turkmenistan entries it ranks 1; inside the 632 entries in its broad region it ranks 306. Its 1,030,063 population value is 1.00 times the 1,030,063 median for the country cohort and 1.02 times the 1,008,426 regional median. Ashgabat is rank 1 among the 1 selected Turkmenistan entries, so a percentage band would overstate this small cohort. Ashgabat's recorded value stays within one quarter of the country-cohort median used here. These comparisons describe this selected dataset only; they are not current census rankings or official urban-area boundaries.
Ashgabat's three nearest other atlas coordinates are Mashhad at 213.267 km with 2,307,177 recorded people; Herat at 526.978 km with 574,300 recorded people; Tehran at 668.288 km with 7,153,309 recorded people. The closest-to-farthest distance spread is 455.021 km. Compared with Mashhad, Ashgabat's recorded population is 0.45 times as large. Against Ashgabat, Mashhad follows Razavi Khorasan → Iran in the source. Its point has lower latitude and higher longitude; it belongs to the selected Iran cohort rather than Turkmenistan, uses Asia/Tehran instead of Asia/Ashgabat, and carries first-order administrative seat rather than capital of a political entity. Its recorded population is above Ashgabat's. Against Ashgabat, Herat follows Herat District → Herat → Afghanistan in the source. Its point has lower latitude and higher longitude; it belongs to the selected Afghanistan cohort rather than Turkmenistan, uses Asia/Kabul instead of Asia/Ashgabat, and carries first-order administrative seat rather than capital of a political entity. Its recorded population is below Ashgabat's. Against Ashgabat, Tehran follows Tehran → Iran in the source. Its point has lower latitude and lower longitude; it belongs to the selected Iran cohort rather than Turkmenistan, uses Asia/Tehran instead of Asia/Ashgabat, and carries the same capital of a political entity class. Its recorded population is above Ashgabat's. Its nearest-neighbor distance ranks 1,023 of 1,206 from shortest to longest in the same snapshot. Ashgabat's nearest-coordinate gap belongs to the wider half of atlas distances. This pattern can reveal whether other catalog references are geographically close, but it cannot establish whether a border crossing is possible or practical, or whether rail, road, fare, or journey-time connections exist. Read as one record signature, GeoNames 162183, the coordinate pair 37.9500 / 58.3833, country rank 1 of 1, and neighbor GeoNames 124665 at 213.267 km bind Ashgabat to a reproducible comparison. That combined key distinguishes the row; it is not a recommendation or evidence of a physical connection.
Ashgabat's reference point is 37.9500° north and 58.3833° east. The IANA identifier Asia/Ashgabat is shared by 1 city rows in this catalog, while the GeoNames class PPLC is shared by 129 rows. Ashgabat's row carries a first-order administrative label but no second-order label. Ashgabat's point falls in the middle-latitude coordinate band used by this atlas's row checks. Ashgabat's time-zone field defines the narrower catalog cohort; its place class is shared more broadly. GeoNames supplies no elevation for Ashgabat, so the profile preserves that missing value instead of guessing terrain. Together these fields form a reproducible identity check for this page, not a claim about walkability, climate or accessibility.
03Nearby atlas references
Ashgabat's closest other entries in this atlas are Mashhad (213.267 km), Herat (526.978 km), Tehran (668.288 km).
04Verify before you book
Before visiting Ashgabat, confirm changing decisions with current first-party sources:
Read how City Atlas Club verifies changing travel facts →05Sources and freshness
GeoNames updated the row 2026-04-15; the atlas checked the dataset 2026-08-04. Available Wikidata fields were verified in the same run.
GeoNames data: CC BY 4.0. Wikidata labels and descriptions: CC0 1.0.