Everything about Kharkiv Oblast totally explained
Kharkiv Oblast (
translit. Kharkivs’ka oblast’; also referred to as
Kharkivshchyna - ) is an
oblast (province) in eastern
Ukraine. The oblast borders
Russia to the north,
Luhansk Oblast to the east,
Donetsk Oblast to the south-east,
Dnipropetrovsk Oblast to the south-west,
Poltava Oblast to the west and
Sumy Oblast to the north-west. The area of the oblast is 31,400 km², corresponding to 5.2% of the total territory of Ukraine.
The oblast is the third most populous region of Ukraine, with a population of 2,857,751 (
as of 2004), more than half (1.5 million) of whom live in the city of
Kharkiv, the oblast's
administrative center. While the Russian language is primarily spoken in the cities of Kharkiv oblast, elsewhere in the oblast most inhabitants speak a mixture of Russian and Ukrainian called
Surzhyk.
History
The territory of the Kharkiv oblast has been permanently inhabited since at least the late
Paleolithic period (10,000–12,000 years ago) but archaeological evidence indicates a human (
Neanderthal) presence as early as the Mousterian period some 80,000 years ago.
The territory was relatively sparsely inhabited until the
1630s, when large numbers of
Ukrainians began to settle there before and during the
Chmielnicki Uprising. Most of the settlers were migrants from the
Dnieper region, many of whom were fleeing fighting between
Cossacks,
Poles and
Tatars. They called the newly settled region the
Sloboda Ukraine ("word sloboda means fortress, mostly made of wood") or
Slobozhanshchina, as the area is still sometimes called, and ruled it from the newly established fortress-city of Kharkov (founded
1656). In 1654, the region was incorporated into
Muscovy (and subsequently the
Russian Empire) under the terms of the
Treaty of Pereyaslav.
Over the next 340 years, the area became heavily Russified. Kharkov itself became one of the cultural and administrative centres of the Russian Empire in the mid-18th century, and served as the capital of the
Ukrainian SSR from
1919 until 1934, when the
Soviet authorities moved the capital back to
Kiev. The modern Kharkiv oblast is a relatively recent creation, having been established on
27 February 1932. Kharkiv Oblast together with Kiev Oblast was two most suffering regions, during the man-made famine (
Holodomor) of early 1930s. It saw major fighting during
World War II in several
Battles of Kharkov between 1941 and 1943.
Demographics
Its population (as of
2001) is 2,895,800 million (1328900 males (45,9 %), 1566900 females (54,1%)).
As of the
2001 census, the ethnic groups within the Kharkiv Oblast are:
the groups by native language:
Ukrainian 53.8%,
Russian 44.3%,
other languages 1.9%.
Economy
The Kharkiv oblast has a primarily industrially based economy, including engineering, metallurgy, manufacturing, production of chemicals and food processing. It also has an important agricultural sector with 19,000 square kilometres of arable land (comprising 5.9% of the total arable lands of Ukraine).
Also in Kharkiv is the Airplane plant for space controlling systems. It is a major center for all branches of engineering, from large-scale manufacture to microelectronics. Also situated in Kharkiv Oblast is a gas field, which is one of the biggest in the Ukraine.
Subdivisions
The Kharkiv Oblast is administratively subdivided into 27 raions (districts), as well as 7 cities (municipalities) which are directly subordinate to the oblast government: Chuhuiv, Izium, Kupiansk, Liubotyn, Lozova, Pervomaiskyi, and the administrative center of the oblast, Kharkiv.
Nomenclature
Most of Ukraine's oblasts are named after their capital cities, officially referred to as "oblast centers" (translit. oblasnyi tsentr). The name of each oblast is a relative adjective, formed by adding a feminine suffix to the name of respective center city: Kharkiv is the center of the Kharkivs’ka oblast’ (Kharkiv Oblast). Most oblasts are also sometimes referred to in a feminine noun form, following the convention of traditional regional place names, ending with the suffix "-shchyna", as is the case with the Kharkiv Oblast, Kharkivshchyna.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Kharkiv Oblast'.
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