"Asan", a species of tree which generally grows thirty meters tall, is found on the banks of the Damodar River; "sol" refers to land.

[14] The region is believed to have been a part of the kingdom of Vishnupur where the Malla dynasty ruled for approximately a thousand years till the emergence of the British.

[15] Asansol is a cosmopolitan city located on the lower Chota Nagpur Plateau, which occupies most of Jharkhand, between the Damodar and Ajay rivers.

Dhanbad district is a major coal mining area and has close links with Asansol; both lie in the Damodar valley.

The city is connected by the Grand Trunk Road and by rail with Durgapur, Burdwan, and Kolkata.

Thus the proper city limits of Asansol includes the old Asansol Area, including Burnpur, as well as other prominent locations like Raniganj, Chinakuri, Mithani, Barakar, Kulti, Dishergarh, Neamatpur, Sitarampur and Jamuria.

Jurisdiction of ADDA covers the areas administered by Asansol Municipal Corporation, the Jamuria Panchayet Samiti, the Community Development Blocks of Andal, Pandabeswar and Durgapur-Faridpur, Durgapur Municipal Corporation and a small part of Kanksa Community Development Block.

[24][25] Raniganj PS has jurisdiction within the city and has the following centres under its area: Jamuria PS has jurisdiction over the following centres; Hirapur and Kulti Police Stations also serve the following parts of Asansol municipal corporation area.

[31] The economy of Asansol is primarily dependent on its steel and coal industries, railways, and its trade and commerce.

Modernisation at IISCO Steel Plant has helped the city develop at a very rapid pace.

- Dishergarh, has a significant presence in the area due to the huge deposits of high-quality coal.

As of 2012, the total coal reserve in the ECL command area up to 600 metre depth was 49.17 billion tonnes.

World's largest vertically integrated organisation Chittaranjan Locomotive Works under Indian Railways is also situated here.

NH 19 has been broadened as part of the Golden Quadrilateral project and now allows three-lane traffic in both directions.

A highway bypass avoids the areas of Ushagram, Murgasol, Asansol Bazar, Chelidanga, BNR, Gopalpur, Neamatpur, Kulti, and Barakar.

The South Bengal State Transport Corporation operates daily bus services to Kolkata and numerous other destinations, such as Malda, Siliguri, Midnapur, Bankura, Siuri, Purulia, Burdwan, Kalna, Howrah, Barrackpore, Digha, Bolpur, Kirnahar and Berhampore.

Another railway track links Asansol with Adra and then to Jamshedpur via Purulia and Kharagpur via Bankura.

As a result, Asansol enjoys good connectivity with cities like New Delhi, Jammu, Amritsar, Ludhiana, Allahabad, Kanpur, Lucknow, Dehradun, Jaipur, Kota, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Gwalior, Bhopal, Indore, Patna, Ranchi, Durgapur and Dhanbad on the one hand and commands a fairly good traffic movement towards the western cities like Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Surat and southern cities like Bhubaneshwar, Visakhapatnam, Vijaywada, Chennai, Bangalore and Trivandrum.

Recently Airport Authority of India gave nod to start commercial flights for six routes in West Bengal; Burnpur Airport being one of them is hopeful to receive its first commercial flight by the last quarter of 2019.