Turkmenistan Trivia
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
5correct to beat the crowd
50 free Turkmenistan trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Turkmenistan is one of the strangest and least-visited countries on Earth, a desert republic on the Caspian run by a father-and-son presidency, and this quiz covers it all: the Oghuz Turks and the Seljuks, medieval Merv when it may have been the biggest city in the world, the Teke tribes who beat Persia and Khiva, the Russian conquest at Geok Tepe, the Soviet republic and independence in 1991, and Saparmurat Niyazov, the 'Head of the Turkmens', who renamed the months, wrote a holy book and put his face on everything. Easy questions ask for the capital, the desert, the neighbours and the sea; the harder ones want the flame that has burned since 1971, the gas field second only to South Pars, the number of white marble buildings in Ashgabat, the horse with a metallic coat, the holiday devoted to melons, the word Niyazov abolished for bread and the year Turkmen switched to Latin script. There is also the flag woven with carpet patterns, the Karakum Canal, permanent neutrality, methane leaks and a black-market manat. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the country, its capital and its rulers, and each question carries the sentence that backs it up.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which country is, like Turkmenistan, one of the six independent Turkic states?
Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan. The others are Turkey, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, yet Turkmenistan alone has held back from full membership of their club, the Organization of Turkic States, and sits in as an observer.
Q 02Which desert covers most of Turkmenistan?
The Karakum
The Karakum. Its name means 'black sand', and it leaves Turkmenistan one of Asia's most thinly peopled countries, with most towns strung along oases at the desert's edge.
Q 03Before entering politics, what was the profession of Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow, Turkmenistan's second president?
Dentist
Dentist. He rose to be Niyazov's health minister, took over as leader when Niyazov died, and then built a personality cult of his own under the title Arkadag, "Protector".
Q 04Which country lies along Turkmenistan's southern border, separated by the Kopet Dag mountains?
Iran
Iran. The Kopet Dag sits in an active earthquake zone, and in 1948 a quake at its foot largely destroyed Ashgabat.
Q 05The burning Darvaza gas crater in Turkmenistan goes by what nickname?
Door to Hell
Door to Hell. Nobody is sure how it began: the popular story blames a Soviet drilling accident in 1971, but Turkmen geologists say it formed in the 1960s and was only lit in the 1980s.
Q 06A gold-plated statue of Niyazov that once crowned a giant arch in Ashgabat was built to always face what?
The sun
The sun. His successor had the monument taken down in 2010 and rebuilt on the edge of the city, where the gilded Niyazov no longer turns.
Q 07What was Niyazov's spiritual guidebook, treated like scripture in schools and mosques, called?
Ruhnama
Ruhnama. Its reach was total: even learner drivers had to pass an exam on it, said to teach them 'the high moral principles of Turkmen society'.
Q 08When Niyazov renamed the months of the year in 2002, which month took his own title, Türkmenbaşy?
January
January. He put himself first in the calendar and gave April his mother's name; his successor scrapped the new names in 2008 and brought the old ones back.
Q 09Niyazov is widely reported to have replaced the Turkmen word for which everyday item with his mother's name?
Bread
Bread. His obituaries report the swap to Gurbansoltan, the name he also gave the month of April until his successor restored the old calendar in 2008.
Q 10How is Serdar Berdimuhamedow, Turkmen president from 2022, related to his predecessor?
Son
Son. Gurbanguly stepped down in 2022 and Serdar won the election that followed, but the father kept his grip as head of the People's Council with the title National Leader.
Q 11Which Soviet post did Niyazov hold before Turkmenistan's independence in 1991?
Party boss
Party boss. He had led the republic's Communist Party since 1985 and backed the hardline coup against Gorbachev in 1991, only to declare independence that autumn as the Soviet Union fell apart.
Q 12The five carpet medallions stacked on Turkmenistan's flag each stand for one of the country's main what?
Tribes
Tribes. Each of the main Turkmen tribes has its own rug medallion, or gul, so the flag's red stripe stacks five of them.
Q 13Turkmen hand-knotted carpets are commonly, but wrongly, sold in the West under what name?
Bukhara rugs
Bukhara rugs. Few Turkmens live around the Uzbek city; the label probably stuck because some of their rugs reached Western buyers through its markets.
Q 21The ruined fortresses of Nisa, a World Heritage Site near Ashgabat, were an early seat of which ancient empire?
The Parthian Empire
The Parthian Empire. From this corner of today's Turkmenistan the Parthians grew into the power that stopped Rome's expansion to the east.
Q 22What happened to President Berdimuhamedow moments after he rode to victory in a 2013 race in Ashgabat?
He fell off his horse
He fell off his horse. State television reported only his win and its $11 million prize, but leaked video of him lying face down on the track spread online.
Q 23The Turkmen descend from which Turkic confederation, whose Seljuk clan went on to build a great medieval empire?
The Oghuz
Q 14The Akhal-Teke, Turkmenistan's national horse breed, is nicknamed the 'Golden Horse' because of what?
Its metallic sheen
Its metallic sheen. The gleam shows best on dun coats, which can shine like polished gold, so pale gold became the colour breeders prize most.
Q 15Turkmenistan celebrates a national holiday on the second Sunday of August devoted to which fruit?
The melon
The melon. Niyazov raised the fruit to a national holiday in 1994, and state television hailed it as a godsend with a glorious history.
Q 16In 2020 Turkmenistan's president unveiled a six-metre golden statue in Ashgabat honouring his favourite breed of which animal?
Dog
Dog. It honours the Alabai, a home-bred Turkmen shepherd dog to which the president had already devoted a book, and which the state lists as national heritage.
Q 17Niyazov built the 'Walk of Health', a concrete stairway into the mountains, and made which group hike it every year?
Government officials
Government officials. Ministers and state employees had to make the long climb once a year, while Niyazov himself flew by helicopter to meet them at the finish.
Q 18Which country is the largest buyer of Turkmen gas, via pipelines across Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan?
China
China. A pipeline opened in 2009 broke Russia's grip on Turkmen exports, most of which had until then flowed north through Russian pipes.
Q 19In 2025 Turkmenistan was the source of most of the world's largest leaks of which greenhouse gas?
Methane
Methane. Sensors in orbit traced the plumes to leaky wells and pipes, which campaigners find maddening: the escaping methane is simply natural gas that could be captured and sold.
Q 20Merv, an oasis once among the great cities of the Islamic world, was destroyed by which invaders in 1221?
The Mongols
The Mongols. Merv had reached its peak as a Seljuk capital; after the sack it was partly rebuilt, but it never regained its former prosperity.
The Oghuz. Medieval Turkmens called themselves Oghuz, and the groups that pushed west from Central Asia became the ancestors of today's Turks and Azerbaijanis as well.
Q 24After independence, Turkmenistan dropped the Cyrillic alphabet in favour of which script?
Latin
Latin. It was a return, not a novelty: Turkmen had already been written in Latin letters from the late 1920s until Cyrillic replaced them in 1940.
Q 25What is Turkmenistan's currency?
The manat
The manat. It replaced the rouble in 1993, and when energy prices slumped in 2015 it was devalued by about a fifth against the dollar.
Q 26In 1995 the UN General Assembly recognised Turkmenistan's status as what?
Permanently neutral
Permanently neutral. Turkmenistan guards the status proudly: in 2017 it persuaded the UN to make 12 December, the anniversary, the International Day of Neutrality.
Q 27Ashgabat holds a Guinness World Record for its concentration of buildings clad in which material?
White marble
White marble. The city was flattened by an earthquake in 1948, and since independence almost every new public building has been given the same gleaming stone face.
Q 28The Alem centre in Ashgabat holds a Guinness World Record for housing an enclosed version of which fairground ride?
Ferris wheel
Ferris wheel. Ashgabat collects such records: its giant flagpole was also the world's tallest when it went up in 2008, until Azerbaijan raised a taller one two years later.
Q 29In 2004 Niyazov ordered what to be built in the mountains outside his desert capital, big enough for 1,000 people?
An ice palace
An ice palace. 'Let us build a palace of ice,' he told the nation on television, in one of the hottest countries on Earth; an indoor ice rink was later built near the capital.
Q 30In 2005 Niyazov ordered the closure of which public services everywhere outside the capital?
Hospitals
Hospitals. His reasoning was that the sick could simply travel to Ashgabat for treatment; thousands of health workers had already been sacked.