However, Atanyyazow explains that the name is of Persian, not Turkic, origin; it was in earlier times Margab, and that later, as a result of folk ethnology, the first syllable's a sound was replaced by a u, making murg ab, "bird water".

[1] During the Soviet period the then-"town of urban type" (Russian: посёлок городского типа) was named Stalino in honor of Joseph Stalin.

It is located in the delta of the Murgab River and has a railway station on the Mary - Serhetabat line.

It was classified as a town of urban type in 1940, and reclassified as a city subordinate to a district in 2016.

In Soviet times there were asphalt and brick factories, and in 1974 a cotton processing plant was constructed.