Ashton is placed about Vii miles (11km) northward-north-east of Manchester city centre. A River Tame and the Ashton Canal both run through the town. The major tourer attraction within Ashton is the Portland Basin Museum, which is based within the previous storage warehouse next to the canal. A basin is a point at which a Ashton Canal, the Huddersfield Narrow Canal and the Peak Forest Canal join together. An additional place of interest in the town is the Museum of the Manchester Regiment.

Far-famed humans from either Ashton include a football player Geoff Hurst, the politician Margaret Beckett and journalist Simon Hoggart.

the town was erstwhile a centre of a big textile (cloth spinning) & coal mining industry. Ashton's industries now include: engineering, food processing, leather, polyurethane, material, brewing, & a manufacture of diesel, flatulence, & oil engines. a big street market is held around the town centre, reputedly one of the largest in England.

Ashton is touching a M66 motorway, and is served by regular rail services between Manchester (Victoria) and Huddersfield. In case it gets a last-ahead, an extension of the Manchester Metrolink tram system will be built to Ashton, even by 2010, however funding for this extension presently looks uncertain.