Table of Content

GENERAL INFORMATION

Quick Facts

Area - 603,700 sq.km. Total length of the border - 7,698 km. Maximum west-east and north-south distances are 1,316 and 893 km, respectively.

Climate, natural zones and resources. On most of the territory the climate is moderately continental. The country can be roughly divided into three zones: the forests bordering on Bielarus in the north; the wooded steppe with oak and beech forests; and the treeless steppe. Southern Crimea forms the tiny fourth zone - the "Ukrainian Riviera", the nature and climate of which is very much like Mediterranean. There are rich deposits of coal, iron ore, oil, gas, sulphur. 

Population - 52.1 million. Population density - 90 per sq.km. Over 66% of the population is urban. Ukrainians constitute approximately 80%, the remainder - Russians, Jews, Bielorussians, Moldavians, Poles, Hungarians, Romanians, Greeks, Germans, Bulgarians, Crimean Tartars, and others. Ethnically, Ukrainians, as well as Russians and Bielorussians, are Eastern Slavs. 

For more facts and figures, please, refer to the chapter on Ukraine of The World Factbook. It also has a small map of questionable use even if you want just to figure out what city is where (better try this one).

The National Anthem (in Ukrainian with English translation) can be found at Linda Hodges' Ukrainian Language and Culture Page.

History

After the Tartar invasion and the decline of Kyiv Principality (13th century), Ukraine was held by Poland and Russia, with sovereignty repeatedly changing hands; it was devastated, sometimes completely and sometimes in parts, by Crimean Tartars.

In the mid-17th century the Cossacks, the most militant of the Ukrainian population, won independence from Poland and established the state occupying the central part of the modern Ukraine, western part remaining under Poland. In 1664, however, the new state was annexed to Russia.

After the decline of the Polish Kingdom (18th century) the western part of Ukraine fell under the reign of Austria (from 1867 on - Austro-Hungarian Empire).

Ukrainian nationalism, with its demands for autonomy, had a strong revival early in the 20th century. In January 1918 the Ukrainian People's Republic was proclaimed. In November 1918 the Western Ukrainian People's Republic was proclaimed (eight months later it was annexed to Poland). During the Civil War of 1917-22 Germans, Russian communists, Ukrainian nationalists, Russian monarchists struggled for control of the rich Ukrainian agricultural lands. Finally, in 1921 Ukraine (except its western part occupied by Poland) was proclaimed Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, one of the four original republics to form the Soviet Union in 1922.

Deprived of their statehood for seven centuries, Ukrainians had been always having a strong national consciousness and striving for independence. In 1991, when - after the unsuccessful "August coup" in Moscow - the USSR fell apart, Ukraine was proclaimed a sovereign nation.