Kazkhstan is located in the center of the Eurasian continent. The area of the republic is 2,724,902 sq. km.  The territory of Kazakhstan occupies the south-eastern part of the East-European Platform ( Pre-Caspian Syneclise), western, south-western and southern parts of the Urals-Mongolian fold belt, the south-west of which is occupied by a large plain area –  Turan Plate overlapped by the Mesozoic and Cenozoic sea basin with outstanding linear paleozoides of Mugodjar and Karatau mountains. To the east of the Turan Plate there is the Central-Kazakhstan Paleozoic massif – Saryarka, Chingiz-Tarbagatay and Zaisan linear fold systems, sublatitudinal Alpine belt of the Northern Tien Shan and Djungarian Alatau.

Kazakhstan is the richest region in Central Asia in the reserves and diversity of minerals. It holds one of the leading positions in the world by reserves of uranium and chrome ores, copper, lead, zinc, manganese and tungsten and ranks among the world top ten countries by reserves of hydrocarbons. The republic possesses considerable reserves of iron, vanadium, molybdenum, gold, industrial diamonds, mining-technical (vermiculite, asbestos, wollastonite, bentonites etc.) and mining-chemical (phosphorites, barytes, fluorite, sulphur etc.) raw materials. It has considerable resources of halite, potassium and manganese salts, sodium sulfates and borates.  There are huge reserves of face and ornamental stones, construction materials, mineral and thermal waters.

Kazakhstan is known for the very high quality of iron ores and ranks second in the world by the reserves of phosphorite (after Russia) due to the Zhanatas and Karatau deposits. Kazakhstan is also the world leader in the production of aluminum.

The mineral resources sector holds the leading position in the structure of Kazakhstan economy. Based on the explored reserves of minerals, dozens of oil-and-gas production and mining enterprises produce and process various types of minerals – ferrous, non-ferrous and precious metals as well as oil and gas.