The county borders Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan and has two towns, 11 townships, four state-owned farms and a plant nursery under its jurisdiction.

The county is located in the southwest of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, east of the Pamir Plateau, and is near the western edge of the Tarim Basin.

[11] In the early years of the Western Han dynasty, the land of the present Akto County was under the jurisdiction of three Kingdoms of Shule, Puli (蒲犁国) and Yilai (依耐国).

In 60 BC, the Han dynasty set up the Protectorate of the Western Regions in Wulei Fortress (乌垒城; near the present Yungou 云沟, Dongye Town 东野镇 in Luntai County), and Akto was under its jurisdiction.

After the Qing dynasty calmed the Revolt of the Altishahr Khojas in 1759, the land was ruled by Kashgar and Yarkand officials (喀什噶尔和叶尔羌参赞大臣).

In 2015, Chinese state media reported about a huge body of the Kongur Tiube glacier (7,530 metres) collapsing causing a 20 km long and one kilometre wide ice rock avalanche.

[17] Akto County is located in the central hinterland of Asia, the westernmost part of China, the southwest of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, the eastern Pamir Plateau, and the western edge of the Tarim Basin.

[10] Akto County includes parts of three major geographic regions: the Pamirs, the northern slopes of the Kunlun Mountains, and the oasis on the western edge of the Tarim Basin.

Large parts of the county are subject to severe drought and erosion due to the bare mountains and sparse vegetation.

Bare mountains in the area are formed from different types of rock, and may therefore be gray, black, yellow, red or white.

The plain agricultural areas in the county are mainly divided into two parts: one is the front flood fan of the Pamir Mountains, and the other is the Gez-Kushan River Delta (盖孜-库山河三角洲).

These two plains, in terms of large landform types, belong to the Kashgar Delta (喀什噶尔三角洲) and form an oasis on the southwest edge of the Tarim Basin.

The Gez-Kushan River Delta, located in the southern part of the Kashgar Plain (喀什噶尔平原), the northern part of the northern slope of the Pamir-West Kunlun Mountain Range, the triangle between the Gez and the Kushan rivers, covers an area of about 800 square kilometers, and has a distribution population of more than 100,000, accounting for about 68% of the total population of the county.