🇰🇿 Kazakhstan
Astana
Astana (formerly Nur-Sultan (2019–2022), formerly Astana (1997–2019), formerly Akmola (1994–1997), formerly Tselinograd (1961–1992) — the capital of Kazakhstan since 1997 when President Nursultan Nazarbayev moved the capital from Almaty to the small steppe city of Akmola on the Ishim River on the vast Kazakh steppe (the world's largest continuous steppe, stretching from Ukraine to China)) is the most extraordinary planned capital city in the world — a city that barely existed 30 years ago and is now a metropolis of 1.3 million people with one of the most remarkable collections of contemporary architecture in the world. The decision to move the capital from Almaty (the cosmopolitan, earthquake-prone, culturally established southern city surrounded by the Tian Shan mountains) to the nearly empty steppe north of the country was strategic: to anchor Kazakhstan's claim to its vast northern territories (historically Slavic, Russian-speaking, close to Russia), to create a new symbol of independent Kazakh nationhood after the Soviet collapse, and to shift the political center of gravity away from the tribal and clan networks of the Almaty south. The result is a city of superlatives: the Bayterek Tower (the 97m steel-and-glass tower that is the primary symbol of Astana — the height of 97 represents the year 1997, the year of the capital move), the Khan Shatyr (the world's largest tent — the 200m transparent ETFE tent designed by Norman Foster (2010) enclosing an entire tropical resort with a beach club, a river, and a shopping mall in the middle of the Kazakh steppe), the Palace of Peace and Accord (the Pyramid — the 62m glass-and-steel pyramid designed by Norman Foster (2006) for the triennial Congress of World Religions), the Nursultan Nazarbayev Center (the massive civic-cultural complex named for the founding president), and the "Left Bank" (the Yesil district — the planned government, business and entertainment district built from scratch on the south bank of the Ishim River, designed according to a master plan by the Japanese architect Kisho Kurokawa).