Ahal Province

Ahal Province is the central region of Turkmenistan. Wikivoyage also covers the Ashgabat capital district as part of Ahal Province.

Cities

• 1 Anau – home to the White Wheat Museum, built in 2005 to house historical artefacts from the area
• 2 Ashgabat — the country's largest city and national capital, home to an array of bizarre, enormous monuments and palatial buildings constructed by the late megalomaniacal dictator, Saparmurat Niyazov.
• Baharden — a town on the northern rim of the Kopet Dag mountain range.
• Buzmeyin (Abadan) — a small city home to a large power plant.
• Dushak — a small town on the rim of the Kopet Dag mountain range.
• 3 Geok-tepe — site of the Turkmens' last stand against the Russian Empire.
• Tejen — a small city on the Hari River (Tejen River).
• Arkadag - the newest city in Ahal Province, its name is referred to the title and nickname held by former President of Turkmenistan, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov.

Other destinations

• 1 Altin Depe – an archaeological site from the Bronze Age
• 2 Karakum — the Gates of Hell — an arresting, colossal flaming crater — is in the middle of the Karakum.
• Mane Baba — an 11th-century mausoleum south of Tejen.
• 3 Nissa — the ruins of one of the most important cities of the Parthian Empire.

Understand

Geographically, the province is divided into 3 parts (mountains, foothills and plains) from the south to the north.

The climate of the region is continental, characterized by hot summers and cold winters, low humidity, and low atmospheric pressure.

Get in

Ashgabat International Airport (ASB ^IATA) is the main port of entry into the province.

See

Fortress in Nissa

In Velayat, there are a number of historical monuments from the reign of the Parthians and the great Seljuks (Seljuk is an Oghuz Turkic warlord and a founder of the Seljuk dynasty) in Altin Depe (Altyndepe), Nissa and Sarahs (Serakhs).

Ulug Depe is 4 km south of the village of Dushak and 175 km northeast of Ashgabat, which is an archaeological site of the Bronze Age of the Yaz culture. It has an area of 26 hectares (0.26 km²), which forms part of a network of large settlements of ancient farmers on the foothill strip of the Kopetdag along with Kara Tepe, Namazga-Tepe, Altyndepe and Yylgynly-depe.

There is a large international equestrian complex in the foothills of the Kopetdag.

Central Asia as a whole is known for its carpets – the Turkmen Carpet Museum has a rich collection of Tekke and Sarik carpets, which also includes the world's largest hand-woven carpet.

Jeitun archaeological site, about 30 km north of Ashgabat on a sand dune in the Kara Kum Desert, is one of the oldest archaeological sites in Turkmenistan. The settlement dates back to the 7th century BCE and is considered as the first proof of agriculture in Central Asia.