Aktau is a city in south-west Kazakhstan, on the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea. Its name, 'white mountain' in Kazakh, may be due to its cliffs that overlook the Caspian. From 1964 to 1991, the city was named Shevchenko, after the Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko who was exiled near there. Aktau is on the Mangyshlak Peninsula in the Mangystau Region.