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This article is about the Turkmeni town. For the Arabic title, see Kunya (arabic) .


Kunya Urgench (Turkmen: Köne Ürgenç) also known as '''Konya-Urgench''', '''Old Urgench''' or '''Urganj''' is a municipality of about 30,000 inhabitants in north-eastern Turkmenistan , just south from its border with Uzbekistan . It is the site of the ancient town of '''Urgench''', which contains the unexcavated ruins of the 12th-century capital of Khwarezm . Since 2005, the ruins of Old Urgench have been protected by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site .

Formerly situated on the Amu-Darya River, Old Urgench was one of the greatest cities on the Silk Route . Its foundation date is uncertain, but the extant ruins of the Kyrkmolla fortress have been dated (rather ambitiously) to the Achaemenid period. The 12th and early 13th centuries were the golden age of Urgench, as it surpassed in population and fame all other Central Asian cities barring Bukhara . In 1221 Genghis Khan Razed It To The Ground in one of the bloodiest Massacre s associated with his name.

After that, the city was revived, but the sudden change of Amu-Darya 's course to the north and the town's destruction by Timur in 1370s, constrained inhabitants to leave the site forever. A new town of Urgench was developed to the north, in present-day Uzbekistan . First archeological research on the old city site was conducted by Alexander Yakubovsky in 1929 .

Most of Urgench's monuments have completely or partly collapsed. Nowadays, the site contains three small 's grandfather, Il-Arslan, who died in 1172. Somewhat to the north, sprawls a vast medieval Necropolis .