Ashgabat or Asgabat (Turkmen: Aşgabat, [ɑʃʁɑˈbɑt]; Persian: عشقآباد, romanized: 'Ešqābād, formerly named Poltoratsk (Russian: Полтора́цк, IPA: [pəltɐˈratsk]) between 1919 and 1927), is the capital and the largest city of Turkmenistan. It lies between the Karakum Desert and the Kopetdag mountain range in Central Asia, near the Iran-Turkmenistan border.