Nursultan Nazarbayev International Airport — Astana, Kazakhstan

The airport serving Kazakhstan's capital has changed names almost as often as the city around it, tracking political shifts that saw the capital move from Almaty to a new city on the northern steppe in the late 1990s, then get renamed from Akmola to Astana, later to Nur-Sultan in honor of former president Nursultan Nazarbayev, and back to Astana after his political fall from favor. The airport followed a similar path, at one point carrying Nazarbayev's name before reverting toward the city's current label, though its IATA code, NQZ, has stayed fixed through these changes since codes rarely get reissued once assigned. A striking modern terminal, expanded around the 2017 Expo held in the city, replaced older Soviet-era infrastructure and now anchors Air Astana's network. Sitting close to 1,200 feet on open steppe, the airport endures brutally cold winters and hot, dry summers typical of Central Asia's continental climate.