Astana (kaz)

Astana

Astana ranks 2,029th in number of biographies on Pantheon, behind Mansfield, Tarsus, Mersin, and Cividale del Friuli. Memorable people born in Astana include Karim Massimov, Askar Mamin, and Alexander Kazantsev. Memorable people who died in Astana include Zhaksylyk Ushkempirov. Astana has been the birth place of many cyclists, and politicians and the death place of many wrestlers. Astana is located in Kazakhstan.

Astana, formerly known as Nur-Sultan, Akmolinsk, Tselinograd, and Akmola, is the capital and second-largest city of Kazakhstan with a population of 1,350,228 within the city limits after Almaty, which had been the capital until 1997. The city lies on the banks of the Ishim River in the north-central part of Kazakhstan, within the Akmola Region, though administered as a city with special status separately from the rest of the region. Initially founded as Akmoly in 1830, the city was later renamed Akmolinsk, Tselinograd, and Akmola before adopting the name Astana in 1998, which means "capital city" in Kazakh. In 2019, the city briefly adopted the name Nur-Sultan in honor of former president Nursultan Nazarbayev, but it returned to the name Astana in 2022. Read more on Wikipedia