Ahal Province
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Ahal Region ( tk, Ahal welaýaty; from fa, آخال, Axāl) is one of five provinces of Turkmenistan. It is in the south-center of the country, bordering
Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
and
Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...
along the Kopet Dag Range. Its area is and population 939,700 (2005 est.).''Statistical Yearbook of Turkmenistan 2000–2004'', National Institute of State Statistics and Information of Turkmenistan, Ashgabat, 2005.


Overview

In 2000, Ahal Region accounted for 14% of Turkmenistan's population, 11% of the total number of employed, 23% of agricultural production (by value), and 31% of the country's total industrial production. Ahal's agriculture is irrigated by the
Karakum Canal The Karakum Canal (Qaraqum Canal, Kara Kum Canal, Garagum Canal; russian: Каракумский канал, ''Karakumskiy Kanal'', tk, Garagum kanaly, , ) in Turkmenistan is one of the largest irrigation and water supply canals in the world. St ...
, which stretches all the way across the province from east to west, tracking Turkmenistan's southern border. Another water source is the
Tejen River The Hari River ( or prs, هری رود, translit=Harī Rōd; ps, د هري سیند) or Herat River is a river flowing from the mountains of central Afghanistan to Turkmenistan, where it forms the Tejend oasis and disappears in the Karakum Des ...
, which flows north from Afghanistan in the southeast corner of the province, passing through two large
reservoir A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation. Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including contro ...
s south of the city of
Tejen Tejen (older spellings: Tedzhen, Tejend, Tejent) is an oasis city with district status in the Karakum Desert, in Ahal Province of Turkmenistan. It lies along the M37 highway, between Dushak and Mary, by road southeast of Ashgabat. It has a p ...
. Ahal is known for the
Battle of Geok Tepe The Battle of Geok Tepe in 1881 was the main event in the 1880/81 Russian campaign to conquer the Teke Turkomans. Its effect was to give the Russian Empire control over most of what is now Turkmenistan, thereby nearly completing the Russian c ...
of 1881, today the site of the imposing
Saparmurat Hajji Mosque The Saparmurat Hajji ( tk, Saparmyrat Hajy metjidi) is a mosque in Gökdepe, Turkmenistan. Commissioned in memory of the defenders of Gökdepe Fortress, it was built between 1994 and 1995, during the presidency of President Saparmurat Niyazov. Th ...
, and for the Bäherden underground warm lake (in the Kov Ata karst cave), both west of
Ashgabat Ashgabat or Asgabat ( tk, Aşgabat, ; fa, عشق‌آباد, translit='Ešqābād, formerly named Poltoratsk ( rus, Полтора́цк, p=pəltɐˈratsk) between 1919 and 1927), is the capital and the largest city of Turkmenistan. It lie ...
. The capital of Ahal Province is Änew (or Anau), a
city A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...
on the south-eastern outskirts of Ashgabat. One other notable city is
Tejen Tejen (older spellings: Tedzhen, Tejend, Tejent) is an oasis city with district status in the Karakum Desert, in Ahal Province of Turkmenistan. It lies along the M37 highway, between Dushak and Mary, by road southeast of Ashgabat. It has a p ...
in the south-east near the border with
Mary Province Mary Region ( tk, Mary welaýaty, Мары велаяты) is one of five provinces in Turkmenistan. It is located in the south-east of the country, bordering Afghanistan. Its capital is the city of Mary. Its area is and population 1,480,400 ( ...
. Turkmenistan's largest city,
Ashgabat Ashgabat or Asgabat ( tk, Aşgabat, ; fa, عشق‌آباد, translit='Ešqābād, formerly named Poltoratsk ( rus, Полтора́цк, p=pəltɐˈratsk) between 1919 and 1927), is the capital and the largest city of Turkmenistan. It lie ...
, is surrounded by Ahal Province, but as the national capital it enjoys status equal to that of a province and is outside Ahal Province's jurisdiction. A new $1.5 billion administrative center for Ahal Province, to be located east of Gökdepe, is under construction. When complete, it will become the capital of Ahal Province, and Änew will lose that status.


History

From antiquity through the early 1800s, the area was populated by Persian-speaking peoples. Nisa, since 2013 located within the city limits of
Ashgabat Ashgabat or Asgabat ( tk, Aşgabat, ; fa, عشق‌آباد, translit='Ešqābād, formerly named Poltoratsk ( rus, Полтора́цк, p=pəltɐˈratsk) between 1919 and 1927), is the capital and the largest city of Turkmenistan. It lie ...
, was likely founded in the third century BCE and was the first capital of the
Parthian Empire The Parthian Empire (), also known as the Arsacid Empire (), was a major Iranian political and cultural power in ancient Iran from 247 BC to 224 AD. Its latter name comes from its founder, Arsaces I, who led the Parni tribe in conque ...
. The area just north of the
Kopet Dag The Köpet Dag, Kopet Dagh, or Koppeh Dagh ( tk, Köpetdag; fa, کپه‌داغ), also known as the Turkmen-Khorasan Mountain Range, is a mountain range on the border between Turkmenistan and Iran that extends about along the border southeast o ...
mountains forms an oasis due to runoff from the mountains and was thus part of the Silk Road caravan route from roughly 2000 BCE until around 1500 CE.


Turkmen period

British Lieutenant Colonel H.C. Stuart reported in 1881 that the Ahal branch of the
Teke tribe Teke is a major and politically influential tribe of Turkmens in Turkmenistan. History The Oghuz forebears of the Teke migrated to Transoxiana in the 7th century. Lieutenant Colonel C.E. Stuart reported that in the 1830s the Teke tribe beg ...
of the Turkmen ethnic group arrived in the area around 1830 and established several semi-nomadic villages (''auls'') between what is now the city of Serdar and village of Gäwers, inclusive., Chapter 11, Stuart, Lt. Col. H.C., ''The Country of the Tekke Turkomans, and the Tejend and Murghab Rivers'', lecture delivered in 1881. The Ahal area was formally part of
Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
but ''de facto'' autonomous under Turkoman tribal control until Russian forces defeated the Teke army at the
Battle of Geok Tepe The Battle of Geok Tepe in 1881 was the main event in the 1880/81 Russian campaign to conquer the Teke Turkomans. Its effect was to give the Russian Empire control over most of what is now Turkmenistan, thereby nearly completing the Russian c ...
in January 1881.


Soviet period

Originally named ''Ashgabat oblasty'' in Turkmen (russian: Ашхабадская область, Cyrillic Turkmen ), the future Ahal Province was initially formed on 21 November 1939, abolished on 25 May 1959, and reconstituted on 27 December 1973. In 1977 ''Ashgabat oblasty'' was awarded the
Order of Lenin The Order of Lenin (russian: Орден Ленина, Orden Lenina, ), named after the leader of the Russian October Revolution, was established by the Central Executive Committee on April 6, 1930. The order was the highest civilian decoration ...
.


Independent Turkmenistan

On 14 December 1992, the People's Council ( tk, Maslahaty, link=no) adopted Law No. 783-ХП, “On the Order of Deciding Issues of Administrative-Territorial Structure of Turkmenistan”, and Resolution XM-6. These statutes changed the Russian word oblast' (область), rendered in Turkmen Cyrillic as област, to the
Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
loan word ''welaýat'' in reference to provinces. The resolution renamed Ashgabat oblasty (russian: Ашгабатская область, Turkmen Сyrillic: Ашгабат областы) to Ahal welaýaty.
Anau Anau may refer to: * Anau, Bora Bora, commune in Bora Bora * Anau, Turkmenistan Anau (also spelled Annau, tk, Änew) is a city in Turkmenistan. Until 20 December 2022 it was the capital of Ahal Province. It is situated 8 km southeast of ...
was designated the capital of Ahal.


Etymology

Ataniyazov wrote,
The meaning of the name is not clear. Khiva historians Munis and Agahi write that the name means "drainage ditch" and it was so named because the Ahal lands were swampy and suitable for rice cultivation (MITT, II, p. 359)...Vambery, on the other hand, writes that the word is derived from the word ''ak''
hite Hite or HITE may refer to: *HiteJinro, a South Korean brewery **Hite Brewery *Hite (surname) *Hite, California, former name of Hite Cove, California *Hite, Utah, a ghost town * HITE, an industrial estate in Pakistan See also *''Hite v. Fairfax ...
/nowiki> and the addition of -al (Vambery, p. 264).


Administrative subdivisions


Districts

Effective January 5, 2018, Ahal Province (''Ahal welaýaty'') is subdivided into 7 districts (''etrap'', plural ''etraplar''): This document is reproduced online at https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Districts_in_Turkmenistan. # Ak bugdaý (formerly Gäwers) #
Babadaýhan Babadaýhan (from Persian بابادهقان ''Bâbâdehqân/Bābā-Dihqān'') is a city and capital of Babadaýhan District in the Ahal Province of Turkmenistan. During the Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Soci ...
(formerly Kirov) # Bäherden (formerly Baharly) #
Gökdepe Gökdepe, also Geok Tepe, is a city in and the administrative center of Gökdepe District, Ahal Region, Turkmenistan, north-west of Ashgabat. The city is built around a former fortress of the Turkmens which bore the same name. The city lies alon ...
# Kaka #
Sarahs Sarahs (, also written Saraghs, Serahs, Sarakhs, Saragt, or Serakhs, the last a backformation of russian: Серахс) is an oasis city in Ahal Province, Turkmenistan, and the administrative center of Sarahs district ( tk, Sarahs etraby). It i ...
#
Tejen Tejen (older spellings: Tedzhen, Tejend, Tejent) is an oasis city with district status in the Karakum Desert, in Ahal Province of Turkmenistan. It lies along the M37 highway, between Dushak and Mary, by road southeast of Ashgabat. It has a p ...


Municipalities

As of October 2022, the province included 8 cities (города or ''şäherler''), 9 towns (посёлки or ''şäherçeler''), 82 rural or village councils (сельские советы or ''geňeşlikler''), and 231 villages (села, сельские населенные пункты or ''obalar''). In the list below, there is no city with "district status": :* Altyn Asyr :* Änew (provincial capital) :*
Babadaýhan Babadaýhan (from Persian بابادهقان ''Bâbâdehqân/Bābā-Dihqān'') is a city and capital of Babadaýhan District in the Ahal Province of Turkmenistan. During the Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Soci ...
:* Bäherden :*
Gökdepe Gökdepe, also Geok Tepe, is a city in and the administrative center of Gökdepe District, Ahal Region, Turkmenistan, north-west of Ashgabat. The city is built around a former fortress of the Turkmens which bore the same name. The city lies alon ...
:* Kaka :*
Sarahs Sarahs (, also written Saraghs, Serahs, Sarakhs, Saragt, or Serakhs, the last a backformation of russian: Серахс) is an oasis city in Ahal Province, Turkmenistan, and the administrative center of Sarahs district ( tk, Sarahs etraby). It i ...
:*
Tejen Tejen (older spellings: Tedzhen, Tejend, Tejent) is an oasis city with district status in the Karakum Desert, in Ahal Province of Turkmenistan. It lies along the M37 highway, between Dushak and Mary, by road southeast of Ashgabat. It has a p ...
As of May 2013 Ruhabat District and the city of Abadan (today called Büzmeýin), until then in Ahal Province, were incorporated into the city of Ashgabat and abolished as separate municipalities. In January 2018, the Babadaýhan District of Ahal Province was re-established, and the Kaka, Tejen, Sarahs Districts were reaffirmed. Baharly's former name, Bäherden, was restored in the same decree, and the Altyn Asyr District was abolished.


Economy


Agriculture

Ahal produces wheat and cotton. Cotton grown in Ahal is ginned at mills in Akdepe,
Gökdepe Gökdepe, also Geok Tepe, is a city in and the administrative center of Gökdepe District, Ahal Region, Turkmenistan, north-west of Ashgabat. The city is built around a former fortress of the Turkmens which bore the same name. The city lies alon ...
, Kaka, and
Tejen Tejen (older spellings: Tedzhen, Tejend, Tejent) is an oasis city with district status in the Karakum Desert, in Ahal Province of Turkmenistan. It lies along the M37 highway, between Dushak and Mary, by road southeast of Ashgabat. It has a p ...
, and spun into cotton yarn at mills in
Ashgabat Ashgabat or Asgabat ( tk, Aşgabat, ; fa, عشق‌آباد, translit='Ešqābād, formerly named Poltoratsk ( rus, Полтора́цк, p=pəltɐˈratsk) between 1919 and 1927), is the capital and the largest city of Turkmenistan. It lie ...
, Gökdepe, and Kaka. Textile complexes are found in Ashgabat, Akdepe (Bäherden), Gökdepe, and Kaka. Cotton seed is crushed for extraction of oil and meal at the Ahal Vegetable Oil Enterprise plant near Ovadandepe. It was opened on 17 May 2010 with a design capacity to process 96,000 tons of cotton seed per year, with daily production of 50 tons of cottonseed oil, 10 tons of margarine, 140 tons of cottonseed meal and 70 tons of soybean hulls.


Industry

On June 28, 2019, a $1.7 billion factory for producing
gasoline Gasoline (; ) or petrol (; ) (see ) is a transparent, petroleum-derived flammable liquid that is used primarily as a fuel in most spark-ignited internal combustion engines (also known as petrol engines). It consists mostly of organi ...
out of natural gas was commissioned in Ovadandepe, Gökdepe District. Built by Rönesans and Kawasaki using technology from Haldor Topsoe, the factory has a design capacity of 600,000 tonnes of gasoline, 12,000 tonnes of Diesel fuel, and 115,000 tonnes of liquefied petroleum gas per year, produced from 1.7 billion cubic meters of natural gas. In 2019, Turkmenistan produced 5.1 million standard square meters (4mm thickness) of sheet glass, all of it in Ahal. A $375 million float glass and glass container plant built by Tepe Inşaat of Turkey was opened February 14, 2018, in Ovadandepe north of Ashgabat. It replaced a Soviet-era glass factory located in central Ashgabat. In 2019, the value of Turkmenistan's glass exports as reported by trading partners was $9.5 million. Database search on HS Code 70 "Glass and glassware", Trading partner "Turkmenistan", Reporters "All" A steel smelter
Türkmen Demir Önümleri Döwlet Kärhanasy
( en, Turkmen Iron Products State Enterprise), operating on scrap metal is located at kilometer 22 on the Ashgabat-Dashoguz Automobile Highway near Ovadandepe. It produces mainly rebar and
channel iron Structural steel is a category of steel used for making construction materials in a variety of shapes. Many structural steel shapes take the form of an elongated beam having a profile of a specific cross section. Structural steel shapes, sizes ...
. The $240 million
Tejen Tejen (older spellings: Tedzhen, Tejend, Tejent) is an oasis city with district status in the Karakum Desert, in Ahal Province of Turkmenistan. It lies along the M37 highway, between Dushak and Mary, by road southeast of Ashgabat. It has a p ...
urea (carbamide) plant, inaugurated on March 18, 2005, has a design capacity of 350,000 tonnes of urea per year. The Baherden Cement Plant, put into operation in 2005, has a design capacity of one million tons of cement per year. In 2019 the Baherden plant reportedly was operating at 64% of capacity. The Kelete Cement Plant has a design capacity of one million tons per year, but as of 2019 was producing at 8.1% of that level. The Derweze State Electrical Power Station ( tk, Derweze Döwlet Elektrik Stansiýasy), a 504.4 megawatt power plant built by Çalık Enerji in 2015, is located near Ovadandepe. The Ahal State Power Station ( tk, Ahal Döwlet Elektrik Stansiýasy), located about 9 kilometers NE of
Anau Anau may refer to: * Anau, Bora Bora, commune in Bora Bora * Anau, Turkmenistan Anau (also spelled Annau, tk, Änew) is a city in Turkmenistan. Until 20 December 2022 it was the capital of Ahal Province. It is situated 8 km southeast of ...
, with design capacity of 650 megawatts, was constructed in 2010 to power the city of Ashgabat and expanded in 2013 and 2014 to power the Olympic Village.


Government installations

The Ovadandepe Prison is located approximately 30 kilometers NNW of G. Orazow adyndaky oba, the seat of the Ovadandepe Rural Council ( tk, Owadandepe geňeşligi). The National Space Agency'
ground station
for communicating with the TurkmenÄlem-52E satellite is located approximately 6 kilometers north of the Ashgabat city limit off the P-1 highway.OpenStreetMap
/ref>


People

*
Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow Gurbanguly Mälikgulyýewiç Berdimuhamedow (born 29 June 1957), also known as Arkadag (Cyrillic: Аркадаг, "protector"), is a Turkmen politician who served as the second president of Turkmenistan from 2006 to 2022. A dentist by profe ...
*
Nurmuhammet Hanamow Nurmuhammet Çaryýewiç Hanamow (Russian: Нурмухаммед Чарыевич Ханамов, ''Nurmukhammed Charievich Khanamov'', born 1 January 1945 in Tejen, Ashkhabad Oblast, Turkmen SSR) is a Turkmen politician. Although he served as t ...
* Berdi Kerbabayev * Saparmurat Niyazov


See also

* Teke (Turkmen tribe) § History *
Darvaza gas crater The Darvaza gas crater ( tk, Garagum ýalkymy), also known as the Door to Hell or Gates of Hell, is a burning natural gas field collapsed into a cavern near Darvaza, Turkmenistan. How the crater formed and ignited remains unknown. Geography The ...
, a persistent natural gas fire
OpenStreetMap Wiki: Ahal Province

OpenStreetMap Wiki: Districts in Turkmenistan


References


External links

{{coord, 38, 30, N, 59, 0, E, display=title Regions of Turkmenistan Khorasan