The town is located on the right (east) bank of a distributary of the Chari River in the delta just before it enters Lake Chad.

[7] In the early Fifteenth Century, Makary went from being an ally of King Idris Alooma[12] to being a part of the Bornu Empire,[7] and soon converted to Islam.

[7] In March 1846 Umar of Borno, nominal general of the Bornu sultan Ibrahim, suffered a defeat at Kousséri by the forces of the Kingdom of Baguirmi, itself weakened by attacks from the Wadai Empire.

[13] By the 1890s Rabih az-Zubayr was able to move into the power vacuum created by these contending forces and took first Oubangui-Chari, then Baguirmi, and then in 1894 Bornu.

[18] Makary has a hot desert climate (BWh) with little to no rain in all months except July, August and September.