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Cities · Turkmenistan · capital
Ashgabat, 
Turkmenistan
Aşgabat
1,218,323 people lived in Ashgabat in 2025. It is the 422nd largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the largest in Turkmenistan, where it is the capital.
The UN measures every city in the world the same way, by where the buildings are rather than where the boundary runs, so this figure and Ashgabat's own can differ widely. What counts as a city here.
In its own language: Aşgabat.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Ashgabat grew
For every 10 people in Ashgabat in 1975, there were 54.6 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 1.8 million people in 2050. It passed a million people between 2015 and 2020.
projected (after 2025) · how sure the UN is: high moderate low
How to read this: read it left to right, 1975 to 2050, one column every five years, the height being people. Hatching marks the projected years. Below, a strip of the UN's confidence: strong colour where the census maps are recent and detailed, pale where they are not, blank where the place was not counted as a city.
People · your family's years · 1975 to 2050
Ashgabat through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Ashgabat in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Turkmenistan · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Ashgabat is the dot in colour with a ring around it. The grey dots are the other cities of Turkmenistan in 2025, 11 in all, each drawn with an area that matches its people. Countries next door are outlines only.
Area and built-up land · km²
How much land it covers
In 2025, Ashgabat covered 138 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 33 km² of it. That is 27 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 5 by 5 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 3 times its size, and its people are 5.5 times as many.
How to read this: the outer pale square stands for all the land the city covers, and the solid square inside it for the part with buildings, roads and the like on it. All three squares share a scale, so you can compare them by eye. A hatched one is a year the UN has projected.
Of every 100 people in Turkmenistan
Its share of Turkmenistan
Of every 100 people in Turkmenistan in 2025, 16 lived in Ashgabat, which is 1.2 million people.
How to read this: 100 squares, one for every 100th person in Turkmenistan; the coloured squares live in Ashgabat. The grey rest live in other cities, in towns or in the countryside.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 418 Liverpool United Kingdom1,227,470
- 419 Vitória Brazil1,226,500
- 420 Maiduguri Nigeria1,225,505
- 421 Dehradun India1,219,198
- 422 Ashgabat1,218,323
- 423 Tangier Morocco1,217,976
- 424 Ganzhou China1,216,248
- 425 Ciudad Juárez Mexico1,212,370
- 426 Begusarai India1,210,200
In Turkmenistan, 2025
How to read this: the number before each name is its place among all 12,138 cities in the world in 2025; bars are people, on one scale per list. Only cities that reach 300,000 people have a page here, so a gap in the numbers is a smaller city.
Apparatus
Sources and method
The figures for Ashgabat are the UN's own, at five-year steps: an estimate for each of 1975 to 2025, then projection to 2050. Projected years are drawn hatched, and the UN publishes no range of uncertainty for a city. What a city means here, how the UN measures one, and why that number can differ from the one Ashgabat publishes about itself: how the figures here are put together.
Sources: UN WUP 2025 · Natural Earth · flag-icons. Every source, its licence and how to cite it →
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries