Its adjacent provinces are Konya along the west and south, Ankara to the northwest, Niğde to the southeast, Nevşehir to the east, and Kırşehir to the north.

Summers are hot and dry on the plain, but the area is green and covered in flowers in springtime, when water streams off the mountainside.

The 2,400 m2 salt lake (0.59 acres), Tuz Gölü, lies within the boundaries of Aksaray, a large swamp area with a maximum depth of 1 metre (3 ft 3 in).

The mound of Aşıklı Höyük in the town of Kızılkaya indicates a settlement dating back to 5,000BC (and also a skull of a woman who had apparently been trepanned, the earliest known record of brain surgery).

The population of Aksaray has long included a higher proportion of Kurdish people than most central Anatolian provinces.