Turkmen are the main ethnic group of Turkmenistan, and in this country there are about five million Turkmen living in the country. However, Turkmenistan is not the only gathering place for Turkmen people, and there are also a large number of Turkmen people living in the countries surrounding Turkmenistan.
In Afghanistan, in eastern Turkmenistan, for example, there are about 1.1 million Turkmen people living there. The Turkmen people of Afghanistan live mainly in the provinces of Herat and Balkh in the northwestern part of the country. Most of the Turkmen in Afghanistan migrated to Afghanistan from the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea in the 19th century, during which time the army of Tsarist Russia began to conquer Turkmenistan.
In Iran's Khorasan region, at least one million Turkmen live, although many scholars believe that Iran's Turkmen population is grossly underestimated. Because the Turkmen people living in Iran, due to the early migration time, they have integrated with the local Persians and Azerbaijanis, and some Turkmen have been integrated into the local people for a long time, so it is difficult to count the real population of The Iranian Turkmen.
Since the sixteenth century, there have been a number of Turkmen tribes living in Iran, and the brave and warlike Turkmen have the habit of serving the Iranian dynasty. In the eighteenth century, the Turkmen established the Afshaal dynasty in Iran, and the founder of the dynasty, Nadir Shah, was a Turkmen living in Dalgaz, Iran. (Pictured is a Turkmen bride living in Afghanistan)
