Category: Tourism, Nur-Sultan
On 23 March 2019, Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, was renamed Nur-Sultan. The new president of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, renamed the city in honour of the country’s first president, Nursultan Nazarbayev.
The new name will be spelled with a hyphen and can be translated as “the light of power”, or “the bright ruler” (in the Kazakh language the word “nur” means “light” or “bright”, and “sultan” means “power” or “ruler”).
Astana (which is the Kazakh word for “capital”) became the capital of Kazakhstan in 1998. Before this, the city had various other names: Akmola (1830-1961), Tselinograd (1961-1992), and Akmola (1992-1998).