Turkmenistan

Close to eighty per cent of Turkmenistan is covered by the Karakum, the desert of black sands, an immense expanse of dunes, clay plains and salt depressions crossed by the longest artificial canal in the world. To the south, the Kopet Dag mountains mark the border with Iran and hold juniper woodland, wild pistachio and a fauna of Iranian affinity that includes the Persian leopard. In the southeast, the Badhyz plateau keeps open pistachio woodland and steppe that make up the last great refuge of the kulan, the Asiatic wild ass of Central Asia. In the west, the Caspian coast and the bay of Kara-Bogaz-Gol, a hypersaline lagoon connected to the sea by a narrow channel, hold Caspian seals and large concentrations of wintering waterbirds.