Dec 24 (Reuters) - Following are key facts about Turkmenistan where President-For-Life Saparmurat Niyazov will be buried on Sunday: * Population is 5 million, of which Turkmens account for 77 percent, Uzbeks 9 percent and Russians about 7. There are small numbers of Kazakhs, Tatars, Ukrainians, Armenians and Azeris. * Turkmenistan occupies 448,100 sq km (280,062 sq miles) on the southeastern coast of the Caspian Sea and borders Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Kazakhstan. The capital Ashgabat has a population of around 600,000. * Turkmen, a Turkic language, is official. Russian is also used to communicate among different ethnic groups. * Turkmenistan is a secular state. The Sunni branch of Islam is the most widely practised religion. * Turkmenistan is officially a presidential republic. It has a unicameral 50-seat legislature, the Medzhlis, elected every 5 years. The Khalq Maslakhaty, or People's Council, is the highest representative organ made up of top government officials, Medzhlis deputies and regional governors. * The Democratic Party, once headed by Niyazov, is the country's only registered political party. * Turkmenistan was part of the Iranian Achaemenid empire in the 6th century BC. Parts of it were conquered by Alexander the Great in 4th century BC. Merv in eastern Turkmenistan was briefly the capital of the Islamic Caliphate in the fourth century. The territory became part of the Russian empire at the end of the 19th century. * Modern-day Turkmenistan was created as part of the Soviet Union in 1924. * It declared its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 with former Communist boss Niyazov as president. * Turkmenistan has followed an isolationist foreign policy although it is a member of the post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). * Turkmenistan has huge reserves of natural gas and sizeable oil deposits. But lack of viable export routes to markets in the West forces it to sell gas to former Soviet countries, which are often tardy with payments. * The national currency is the manat.
