Turkmenistan—Profile
(2001 est. pop. 4.6 million). The Republic of Turkmenistan is located in southwest Central Asia. The nation shares an eastern border with Afghanistan, a northern border with Uzbekistan, a northwestern border with Kazakhstan, a southern border with Iran, and a western border with the Caspian Sea.
Turkmenistan was annexed by Russia in the last part of the nineteenth century. On 27 October 1924, the Turkmenistan Soviet Socialist Republic was established. It became an autonomous republic of the Soviet Union in May 1925. Turkmenistan became an independent state on 27 October 1991, following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Geography
Ninety percent of Turkmenistan's area of 488,100 square kilometers is consumed by the Kara-Kum and Kyzyl-Kum deserts, and is largely uninhabited. The Kara-Kum Canal carries water from the Amu Dar'ya westward across the desert to Mary and ultimately to Ashgabat, a distance of about 800 kilometers. The canal water permits irrigated agriculture and industry along the southern margin of the Kara-Kum desert. Temperatures tend toward extremes, with very cold winters and extremely hot, dry summers. Precipitation is low.
People
Turkmenistan had a 2001 estimated population of
4.6 million people. More than one-third of the population is under the age of fifteen. Ethnically, about 73 percent of the population is Turkmen, 9.8 percent is Russian, 9 percent are Uzbek, and 2 percent are Tatar. The population growth rate is high, about 2.1 percent in 2000. Life expectancy is about 61 years. Literacy rates are high, around 98 percent. About 89 percent of Turkmenistan's population practices Islam. Turkmen are traditionally Sunni Muslims. Another 9 percent of the population professes Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Sufi mysticism and shamanism are also visible.
In 1990 Turkmen was declared the official language. The Soviets replaced the traditional Arabic script with a Latin script in 1929, and later Cyrillic in 1940. Independent Turkmenistan has returned to a Latin script.
Government
Turkmenistan is a republic with executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government, and a new constitution that was adopted on 18 May 1992.
Saparmurat Niyazov, who had been chairman of the Supreme Soviet, has served as Turkmenistan's president since 1991. In 2001, he announced he would retire by 2010, and open presidential elections are not planned until his retirement. Niyazov is often called Turkmenbashi, meaning "head of the Turkmen." Niyazov is the real source of power in the Turkmenistan government. There are two parliamentary bodies, a unicameral People's Council, or Halk Maslahaty. and a unicameral Assembly or Majlis. The constitution guarantees an independent judiciary.
Turkmenistan has five administrative regions (velayats or welayatlar): Ahal, Balkan Welayaty, Dashhowuz, Lebap, and Mary. These five are subdivided into fifty etraps, or districts. Ashgabat is the country's capital.
Economy
Turkmenistan is largely desert country with intensive agriculture in irrigated oases. One-half of its irrigated land is planted in cotton, making it the world's tenth-largest producer. Desertification and water pollution pose future concerns. The country has huge gas reserves (the fifth-largest reserves in the world) as well as oil resources. Other natural resources include coal, sulfur, and salt.
Until the end of 1993, Turkmenistan had experienced less economic disruption than other former Soviet states because its economy received a boost from higher prices for oil and gas and a sharp increase inhard-currency earnings. This changed in 1994 as the fortunes of its customers in the former Soviet Union continued to decline. The government has been cautious in initiating economic reform measures, including privatization. A regional financial crisis prompted President Niyazov to issue a decree in late 1998 restructuring the banking sector and increasing government ownership.
Turkmenistan's telephone system is poorly developed, with only 363,000 telephone lines in use in 1997. Estimates for radios and televisions in 1997 were 1.225 million and 820,000 respectively. A 2000 estimate showed 2,000 Internet users in the country. There were seventy airports in the country in that same year; thirteen of those had paved runways. In 1989, official statistics showed sixty-six newspaper titles published in Turkmenistan.
About 58 percent of the population of Turkmenistan lived below the poverty line in 1999. Future prospects are uncertain.
Rebecca M. Bichel
Further Reading
UNESCO (2002) Statistical Yearbook 1999. Retrieved 1 May
2002, from: http://www.uis.unesco.org/en/stats/stat s0.htm. United Nations (2001) Statistical Yearbook. New York:
United Nations Statistics Division. United States Census Bureau. (2002) "IDB Summary Demographic Data for Turkmenistan." Retrieved 1 May 20002, from: http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/ipc/idbsu m?cty=TX.
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