Turkmen Sahra
Turkmen Sahra () is a region in the northeast of Iran near the Caspian Sea, bordering Turkmenistan, the majority of whose inhabitants are ethnic Turkmen. The most important cities of Turkmen Sahra are Gonbad-e Kavus, Aqqala, Kalaleh, Maraveh Tappeh, Gomishan and Bandar Torkaman. There are, according to Ethnologue, roughly 719,000 Turkmens in Turkmen Sahra today. Society Turkmens today in Turkmensahra live fairly modern lifestyles, although the effects of religion and the Muslim way of life are visible. The economy is based on industry, even if agriculture still plays a great role in some Turkmens' life, like in other places of Iran. The professions among Turkmens show the pattern of a modern economy even if there are still some shortcomings due to lack of funding from the central authorities. The economic potential of Turkmensahra is large since a vast amount of oil was discovered early in the 1930s. But since there was a deal with the Soviet Union that there would be no oil extraction from Turkmen Sahra, there is not an oil industry at the moment. Before the revolution of 1979, Turkmens had a richer life economically than the people of other regions of Iran. Although there was poverty in