9 ATLASES

History of Turkmenistan in maps

Turkmenistan as it appears in 9 interactive history atlases, from 1206 to 2000: Khwarazm & Khorasan, Turkmenistan, Transcaspia, the Turkmen SSR, Soviet Turkmenistan. Each era below lists who ruled the land and when control changed, linked to the dated map that shows it.

What was Turkmenistan before it was Turkmenistan? The sections below follow this land through every era covered by the Maps of History atlases: who ruled it, what it was called, and when control changed. Each line links to the dated map. Modern borders serve as an approximation, as each atlas says on the map itself.

Khwarazm & Khorasan (mod. Turkmenistan) · Mongol Empire

MONGOL EMPIRE: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

Turkmenistan · Industrial Revolution

INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

Turkmenistan · Meiji Japan and post-Soviet Russia

Turkmenistan is a desert republic with vast natural gas reserves. Its voters overwhelmingly favored keeping the Union in March 1991, and the republic became independent when the Union dissolved. Party chief Saparmurat Niyazov made himself president for life and built a personality cult, even renaming months after himself and his mother. Independence could leave Soviet-style rule in place.

MEIJI JAPAN AND POST-SOVIET RUSSIA: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

Transcaspia (mod. Turkmenistan) · Russian Revolution

The Turkmen were the last Central Asian people to be conquered. Russian forces stormed Geok Tepe in 1881, and Merv submitted in 1884. During the intervention, Transcaspia saw a strange episode: British troops from Persia briefly backed a local anti-Bolshevik government. The region was reconquered into Soviet Turkestan by 1920, and the Turkmen continued to resist collectivization into the 1930s.

RUSSIAN REVOLUTION: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

Russian Turkestan (mod. Turkmenistan) · Indian independence

The Transcaspian edge of Russian Turkestan was conquered in the 1880s. At Gök Tepe, a massacre broke Turkmen resistance. The tsars then had a strategic railway crossing the region, and British India’s planners remained anxious about it for a generation. The Great Game’s arrangements—Afghanistan as buffer and Persia as sphere—were drawn against this coast. By the era of this map, the frontier had quieted, but the anxiety had already shaped the Raj’s northwest.

INDIAN INDEPENDENCE: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

Turkmenistan · WWI

WWI: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

The Turkmen SSR · Stalin’s Soviet Union

Created in 1924 from parts of Turkestan, Bukhara and Khorezm, the Turkmen republic encompassed the Karakum desert and the oases along the Iranian border. Collectivisation and the forced settlement of nomadic Turkmen tribes brought armed revolts in the early 1930s. Many families escaped to Iran and Afghanistan. An earthquake destroyed the capital, Ashkhabad, in October 1948 and killed tens of thousands; the Soviet press barely reported it.

STALIN’S SOVIET UNION: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

Soviet Turkmenistan · Road to WW2

ROAD TO WW2: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

Turkmenistan · Cold War

COLD WAR: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

Related

• History of Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus PREVIOUS
• History of the Turks and Caicos Islands NEXT
• Mongol Empire timeline and maps
• Industrial Revolution timeline and maps
• Meiji Japan and post-Soviet Russia timeline and maps
• Russian Revolution timeline and maps
• Indian independence timeline and maps
• WWI timeline and maps