Katon – Karagai district of East Kazakhstan region was established in 1929. In 1997, Bolshenarymsky district was annexed to the territory of the district. By Presidential Decree № 424 dated December 28, 2023, the district center was moved to the village of Katon – Karagai with the withdrawal from the Ulken Naryn district.
The territory of the district is 940,777 hectares.
Administrative division. The district consists of 7 rural districts. There are 27 settlements in the district. The administrative center is the village of Katon - Karagai, with a population of 3.7 thousand inhabitants, which is 38.5% of the population of the district.
Geographical location. Katon-Karagai district is located in the north-east of the East Kazakhstan region. It borders the districts of Ulken Naryn, Markakol and Kurchum district.The district is located in the border area of China, Russia and Mongolia.
Infrastructure:
The district is connected to the regional center by the Ust-Kamenogorsk-Altai -Rakhmanovskie Klyuchi highway of republican significance.
The transport network consists of highways of republican, regional and district significance. The total length is 414.6 km
The length of roads of national significance is 146 km, of regional significance is 268.6 km, of which 40.3 km by type of asphalt–concrete pavement, 5.1 km black–gravel, 223.2 km gravel-crushed stone, 197 culverts, 19 bridges. Annually, under the Program 023 "Ensuring the functioning of highways", funds are allocated from the local budget for winter and summer maintenance of roads, in the summer work is underway on the current patching of intra-district roads.
The social economy of the region:
The economy of the district has an agricultural and tourist orientation.
Taking into account the natural and climatic conditions of the region, animal husbandry (cattle breeding, horse breeding, sheep breeding, maral breeding and beekeeping) has received a multidisciplinary development that has all the prerequisites for the development of this industry.
Maral breeding is a unique industry in the region. The number of individual entrepreneurs engaged in beekeeping is increasing every year.
Tourism potential:
The tourism industry is actively developing in the district, such as: therapeutic, ecological, rural, social, cultural, educational and active tourism.
Cultural and educational tourism is popular in the area, where thousands of tourists visit historical and cultural heritage sites every year. There are historical mounds, petroglyphs and monuments on the territory of the district, which are witnesses of our history.
The key places of tourist interest are Mount Muztau, Kyndyk Tas, the Austrian Road, Kokkolsky Waterfall, Rakhmanovskie Klyuchi thermal springs, Kokkol high-altitude mine, Berel excavations, Sarcophagus "Open-air Museum", the Northern Branch (Golden Branch) The Great Silk Road, the house-museum of Oralkhan Bokey, the school-museum of Abdykerim Yerezhepuly, monuments of Karatai Baba, Oralkhan Bokey and Boshai Kitapbayev.
The most promising types of tourism in the Katon-Karagai district are such types of eco-tourism as: car tours with elements of trekking, horseback riding, rafting, mountaineering and mountain hiking (trekking) tours. The main object of the visit is the mountain and the surroundings of Belukha. Rafting tours (rafting) of various difficulty categories are designed for lovers of traveling along mountain rivers. The most popular river for rafting is the Bukhtarma River.