Five Questions – Central Asia
What better way to learn about the vast and important countries of Central Asia neighbours than through maps?
Here’s a geography challenge for you…
- Which is the ninth largest country in the world, spanning 2.7 million kilometres square, and home to the Baykonur Cosmodrome spaceport?
- In which country is Lake Ysyk-Kol, the second largest salt lake in the world and site of 2500 years of archeological history?
- Of which country is Ashgabat the capital?
- Where is the ancient city of Samarkand, in which one of the Muslim world’s oldest astronomical observatories was located in the 1400s?
- Which Central Asian country has a high point of 7495 metres at Ismoil Somoni – once known as Communism Peak?
Answers below!
Maps were sourced from From the Free, Open Source Portable Atlas Project:
The Answers:
- Kazakhstan – this spaceport is the only launchpad currently sending people to the international Space Station
- Kyrgyzstan – the crossroads city at this lake may have been the starting point of the Great Plague epidemic
- Turkmenistan – also home to the largest indoor Ferris wheel on Earth
- Uzbekistan – this was a great center of learning and scientific study
- Tajikistan – it was first climbed in 1933

The Editor of Tasmanian Geographic is a shadowy and mysterious figure who is often found deep underground, in the treetop branches, on coastal beaches, or high in the mountains.
Share this:
- Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
- Click to print (Opens in new window)
- Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
- Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
- Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
- Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
- Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
- Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
- Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
- Click to share on Skype (Opens in new window)