Historical regions of Ukraine

A list of the various regions of Ukraine and/or inhabited by Ukrainians and their ancestors throughout history.

Main historical regions

Traditional regions

The traditional names of the regions of Ukraine are important geographic, historical, and ethnographic identifiers.
* Over-Dnieper Ukraine, Great Ukraine
** Land of Kyiv
*** Right-bank Ukraine (east of Zhytomyr Oblast, Kyiv Oblast, Cherkasy Oblast), Central Ukraine
*** Polesia, Land of Turov (north of Kyiv Oblast, east of Brest Oblast, west of Gomel Oblast), Northern Ukraine
** Land of Pereyaslav (predominantly Poltava Oblast and east of Kyiv Oblast), southern part of Left-bank Ukraine, Little Russia, Central Ukraine
** Land of Chernihiv (predominantly Chernihiv Oblast, west of Bryansk Oblast, east of Gomel Oblast), northern part of Left-bank Ukraine, Little Russia, Northern Ukraine
** Severia (Sumy Oblast, Kharkiv Oblast, Kursk Oblast, Belgorod Oblast)
** Sloboda Ukraine (mostly Kharkiv Oblast)
* Ruthenia, Kingdom of Rus, Western Ukraine, Western Oblast, Liitle Poland
** Volhynia (Volyn Oblast, Rivne Oblast, west of Zhytomyr Oblast, north of Ternopil Oblast, north of Khmelnytsky Oblast), former principality
** Chełm, Belz, San River, Przemyśl (east of Podkarpackie Voivodeship and Lublin Voivodeship), former principality and a constituent land of Ruthenia
** Berestia (west of Brest Oblast, south of Podlaskie Voivodeship)
** Galicia (Lviv Oblast, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, Ternopil Oblast)
*** Red Ruthenia
*** Prykarpattia (Boikos and Lemkos, collectively Rusyns)
*** Pokuttia ( Hutsuls)
* Podolia (Khmelnytsky Oblast, Vinnytsia Oblast, north of Odessa Oblast, west of Kirovohrad Oblast), Little Poland
* Zaporizhzhia (Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, east of Kirovohrad Oblast), New Serbia, Central Ukraine
* Pontic steppe, Wild Fields, New Russia
** Donbas ("Donets Basin") (Donetsk Oblast, Luhanks Oblast), also known as Cuman Land, Slavo-Serbia, Eastern Ukraine
** Azov Littoral (Zaporizhzhia Oblast, south of Donetsk Oblast, southwest of Rostov Oblast)
** Black Sea Littoral, Southern Ukraine
*** Over-Buh, Yedisan, Transnistria (Odessa Oblast, Mykolaiv Oblast)
*** Bugeac (Budzhak) (southwest of Odessa Oblast)
*** Tavria (Kherson Oblast)
* Crimea (''Krym''), also known as Tavria, Taurida
* Transcarpathia / Carpathian Ruthenia, Subcarpathian Rus, Carpatho-Ukraine and many others
** Maramureș
* Northern Bukovina (Chernivtsi Oblast)

Regions historically inhabited by Ukrainians (mostly with other nations), which are partly or wholly outside modern Ukraine:
* Kuban granted to Black Sea Cossacks colonization from the Russian government during the Russian-Circassian War
* Northern Caucasus (also called Pink Ukraine)
* Volga Region (around Saratov, called Yellow Ukraine)
* Siberia (city of Omsk, Grey Ukraine)
* Russian Far East (see Green Ukraine)

Regions of Ukraine

Geopolitical, historical, and cultural factors play a role in assigning different areas of Ukraine to semi-official regions. The map on the right shows the approximate locations of some broad-brush regions. The terms "Central Ukraine", "Eastern Ukraine", "Southern Ukraine", and "Western Ukraine" occur in common usage. There is no clear definition of the boundaries of such regions, but rather a general reference. Lists of what may constitute such regions might include:

* Central Ukraine, a more vague term, often denotes what is not included in Western or South-Eastern definitions.
* Eastern Ukraine may mean either the Don basin, Sloboda Ukraine, continental Taurida regions etc.
* Southern Ukraine often includes the whole Taurida, the Kryvyi Rih basin, and the regions of Mykolayiv and Odessa oblasts. Alternatively it may include the Don basin, in particularly the adjacent land to the Azov Sea.
* Western Ukraine may mean either the historic region of Galicia, or may also include Volhynia, Podolia, Transcarpathia, and/or Bukovina.

Other terms are rarely used – such as "South-western Ukraine", which can denote either Transcarpathia, or Budjak. Sometimes the term "South-eastern Ukraine" is used to define both regions of the Southern and Eastern Ukraine. Due to the shape of the country, in narrow definition, term "Northern Ukraine" is often used to denote either the bulge of Chernihiv/ Sumy oblasts or, in broader terms, the whole of Polesia. "North-western Ukraine" almost exclusively refers to the historic region of Volhynia. This makes the term "North-eastern Ukraine" rarest of them all – it is either used as synonym for the narrow definition of Northern Ukraine, or as synonym for Sloboda Ukraine (particularly Sumy Oblast).

File:Central Ukr.png, Central Ukraine
File:Eastern Ukr.png, Eastern Ukraine
File:Northern Ukr.png, Northern Ukraine
File:Southern Ukr.png, Southern Ukraine
File:Western Ukr.png, Western Ukraine
File:Ukraine-Historical regions.svg, The historical regions of Ukraine

Historical Ukrainian states

* Kievan Rus (a state of Early East Slavs), (879–1240)
* Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia (1199–1349)
* Cossack Hetmanate (1649–1764)
* Central Rada of the Ukrainian People's Republic (1917–1918)
* Ukrainian People's Republic of Soviets (1917–1918)
* Odesa Soviet Republic (1918)
* Donetsk–Krivoy Rog Soviet Republic (1918)
* Ukrainian Soviet Republic (1918)
* Hetmanate of the Ukrainian State (1918)
* West Ukrainian People's Republic (1918–1919)
* Directorate of the Ukrainian People's Republic (1918–1920)
* Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (1919–1991)
* Galician Soviet Socialist Republic (1920)
* Carpatho-Ukraine (1938–1939)
* Ukrainian national government (1941)
* Ukraine (1991–present)

See also

* Geography of Ukraine
* ISO 3166-2:UA
* List of places named after people (Ukraine)

References

* Paul Robert Magosci, ''Ukraine: A Historical Atlas'', 1985. University of Toronto Press, Toronto.

{{Ukrainian historical regions

Historical regions
Ukraine
Ukrainian genealogy
Historical regions