Abstract <p>The article proposes a methodology for identifying and assessing urban fringe areas of million-plus cities in Kazakhstan. The urban fringe is formed as a result of chaotic expansion of a city center and preservation of legacy objects, both natural, contributing to the improvement of the environmental situation, and anthropogenically transformed with varying degrees of environmental stress. At the first stage, the urban fringe was delimited, defined as the strip between the administrative boundary of the city (taking into account the actual development) and the internal boundary, identified according to the land use diversity index (Shannon entropy). At the second stage, a conjugated typology of integral indices of the density of social infrastructure and the environmental situation was carried out, which revealed the asymmetrical development of the urban fringe and central areas of million-plus cities in Kazakhstan: the development of territories with a low level of one indicator is compensated by a high level of another. More than 70% of the urban fringe (where 50% of the population lives) is characterized by favorable environmental conditions and underdeveloped social infrastructure. In the central parts, types with a high level of development of social infrastructure are widespread. They are surrounded by isolated areas where environmental stress is caused by the impact of industry and transport, and where social infrastructure is underdeveloped. Industrial impact is declining everywhere, but in Almaty, industrial zones are actively disintegrating; in Astana, this process is just beginning; and in Shymkent, it has not yet begun. The polarization of the integral index of social infrastructure density is characteristic of the urban fringe of Almaty and Astana, while in Shymkent its values are homogeneous and differ minimally from the city center. The greatest diversity is characteristic of areas of new and rapidly developing areas in Astana, while the least diversity is found in the integration of old suburbs into the city limits in Shymkent. An improvement in the integrated index of the environmental situation from the center to the periphery and a significant diversity in the level of environmental well-being from very low to very high are universal properties of urban fringe.</p>