The town is located 130 km south of Oral, Kazakhstan (Uralsk), on the right bank of the Ural River.

[1] According to the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary, in 19th century the local residents were reported to be mainly engaged in agriculture, fishing, herding, hunting and gathering liquorice root.

[2] The town was the place of death of Vasily Chapayev, the Red Army commander of the Russian Civil War (1919).

A museum was established in his memory in 1927, which has received the National Monument of Kazakhstan status.

The earlier settlement was named Ilbishin (Ulbishin, Kazakh: Ілбішін) or Lbishchensk (Russian: Лбищенск) since the 20th century and in 1899 the town had 3400 people (2100 of which were Cossacks), 2 churches, 2 schools, and mail and telegraph connections.