The district is located in the southeastern central part of the republic and occupies an area of 2,542 square kilometers (about 981 sq mi).

The city administration plans to create a third special economic zone in the region following the successful examples of Alabuga and Innopolis.

The visual design of the coat of arms includes a green and red canvas with a golden staircase and a fountain placed in a tulip flower.

The green field embodies the geographic peculiarities of the republic’s south-east, while the red stripe symbolizes industrial power.

As the geographer Yevgeny Pospelov states, throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, there was the Bashkir village of Almetevo on the site of the modern city.

After the Nogai were expelled, the ethnically diverse local population remained small in number and was often subjected to Kalmyk raids.

According to historian Aydar Nogmanov, only after the Bashkir uprising of 1704-1711 was suppressed did farmers begin to move to the South-Eastern Trans-Kama region.

[13][14] In the first half of the 18th century, the modern Almetyevsky district belonged to the Nadyrovskaya volost and was populated mainly by the yasak non-Russian peoples.

The village was first mentioned in 1735, when the local mullah Almet informed the Russian commander-in-chief about the Bashkir insurrection taking place in the volost.

The lands surrounding the New Moscow road (Novomokovskaya) were gradually inhabited by peasants from Simbirsk, Penza, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Kasimovsk and other counties.

In 1918, the Red Army confronted Czechoslovak units, and in 1919 they fought against the White military leader Alexander Kolchak.

In the same year, the Bugulma peasants rose in a large anti-Bolshevik uprising that swept many of the surrounding regions but was soon brutally suppressed.

The newly formed district repeatedly changed its borders: in 1959, it incorporated a part of the abolished Aktash region.

Although agriculture traditionally played a crucial role in the regional economy, the second half of the 18th and early 19th centuries witnessed the rise to prominence of the mining and oil industries in the district.

In 1931, a number of local party members were accused of "right-wing opportunist deviation" and deliberate disruption of grain procurements.

[18][6][19] The Post–World War II period was characterized by significant development of energy and oil production in the southeast Kama region.

The collapse of the Soviet Union and the transition to a market economy affected the regional budget and eventually led to economic growth in the 90s.

In 2018, the local administration submitted a claim to apply for the status of TASED (the territory of advanced socio-economic development) specializing in non-resource production with an export orientation.

[28] In 2019, the Tatarstan government announced plans to create a special economic zone (SEZ) in Almetyevsk following the example of “Alabuga” and “Innopolis”.

The construction of the third SEZ in the republic aims to develop the regional economy and create favorable conditions for federal and foreign investment.

According to ecologists Bubnov and Kozhevnikova who carried out their research in the early 2000s, “waters of the Upper and lower Kama sediments have greatly changed their composition over the past 30–40 years.

The main reason for the change in the composition of groundwater was a man-made factor: oil and gas production, agriculture and household waste.”[30] Scientists suggest that the municipalities with the help of ecologists should take up environmental monitoring.

As part of the Year of Ecology in Russia (2017), the district administration approved a special program for 2017–2021 to ensure “environmental and sanitary and epidemiological safety of the population.”[31] In addition, the Almetyevsk State Oil Institute holds events—meetings, talks, republican and city competitions—to engage more young people in environmental activities.

[32] The growth in oil production and refining has determined the rise of Almetyevsk as a regional center for training specialists in the petroleum industry.