Aqtöbe, formerly Aktyubinsk, city in northwestern Kazakhstan, the capital of the Aqtöbe Province. Aqtöbe is located on the Ilek River at the far southern end of the Ural Mountains. There are iron-alloy processing plants associated with nearby chromium deposits at Kromtau, about 90 km (about 55 mi) east of Aqtöbe. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was the world's second largest chromite producer after South Africa, producing one-fourth of the world's supply, almost all of which came from this deposit. Nickel ore is also mined around Aqtöbe, representing half of the known nickel reserves in the former USSR. Nickel ore is shipped north to metallurgical plants in the Urals. Large nonmetallic ore deposits, including asbestos and borax, are located nearby. A borax plant in Aqtöbe produces boron compounds used in nuclear reactors and space exploration as a coating material for solar batteries. A major oil pipeline between Orenburg, Russia, and Toshkent, Uzbekistan, passes through Aqtöbe.
Aqtöbe was founded in 1869 as a Russian fortress called Ak-Tyube. It was renamed Aktyubinsk in the 1880s, and grew quickly after World War II (1939-1945) as an important metallurgical center. Population (1993 estimate) 264,000.
