The administrative divisions of Ukraine ( ) are under the jurisdiction of the Ukrainian Constitution. Ukraine is a

unitary state A unitary state is a (Sovereign state, sovereign) State (polity), state governed as a single entity in which the central government is the supreme authority. The central government may create or abolish administrative divisions (sub-national or ...

with three levels of administrative divisions: 27 regions (24

oblasts An oblast ( or ) is a type of administrative division in Bulgaria and several post-Soviet states, including Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. Historically, it was used in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. The term ''oblast'' is often translated i ...

, two

cities with special status A city with special status (), formerly a "city of republican subordinance", is a type of first-level administrative division of Ukraine. Kyiv and Sevastopol are the only two such cities. Their administrative status is recognized in the Ukraini ...

and one

autonomous republic An autonomous republic is a type of administrative division similar to a province or state. A significant number of autonomous republics can be found within the successor states of the Soviet Union, but the majority are located within Russia. Ma ...

), 136

raion A raion (also spelt rayon) is a type of administrative unit of several post-Soviet states. The term is used for both a type of subnational entity and a division of a city. The word is from the French (meaning 'honeycomb, department'), and is c ...

s (districts) and 1469

hromada In Ukraine, a hromada () is the main type of municipality and the third level Administrative divisions of Ukraine, local self-government in Ukraine. The current hromadas were established by the Cabinet of ministers of Ukraine, Government of Uk ...

s. The administrative reform of July 2020 merged most of the 490 legacy raions and 118 pre-2020 cities of regional significance into 136 reorganized raions, or districts of Ukraine. The next level below raions are

s. Following the annexations of Crimea and southeastern Ukraine by the Russian Federation,

Autonomous Republic of Crimea The Autonomous Republic of Crimea is a ''de jure'' administrative division of Ukraine encompassing most of Crimea that was unilaterally annexed by Russia in 2014. The Autonomous Republic of Crimea occupies most of the peninsula,Sevastopol Sevastopol ( ), sometimes written Sebastopol, is the largest city in Crimea and a major port on the Black Sea. Due to its strategic location and the navigability of the city's harbours, Sevastopol has been an important port and naval base th ...

as well as portions of

Donetsk Donetsk ( , ; ; ), formerly known as Aleksandrovka, Yuzivka (or Hughesovka), Stalin, and Stalino, is an industrial city in eastern Ukraine located on the Kalmius River in Donetsk Oblast, which is currently occupied by Russia as the capita ...

Kherson Kherson (Ukrainian language, Ukrainian and , , ) is a port city in southern Ukraine that serves as the administrative centre of Kherson Oblast. Located by the Black Sea and on the Dnieper, Dnieper River, Kherson is the home to a major ship-bui ...

Luhansk Luhansk (, ; , ), also known as Lugansk (, ; , ), is a city in the Donbas in eastern Ukraine. As of 2022, the population was estimated to be making Luhansk the Cities in Ukraine, 12th-largest city in Ukraine. Luhansk served as the administra ...

and

Zaporizhzhia Zaporizhzhia, formerly known as Aleksandrovsk or Oleksandrivsk until 1921, is a city in southeast Ukraine, situated on the banks of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. It is the Capital city, administrative centre of Zaporizhzhia Oblast. Zaporizhzhia ...

oblasts came under the '' de facto'' administration of the

Russian Federation Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

. Internationally, most states have not recognized the Russian claims.

Overview

According to Article 133 of the

Constitution of Ukraine The Constitution of Ukraine (, ) is the fundamental law of Ukraine. The constitution was adopted and ratified at the 5th session of the ''Verkhovna Rada'', the parliament of Ukraine, on 28 June 1996. The constitution was passed with 315 ayes o ...

as amended, the system of administrative and territorial organization of Ukraine consists of: * the

Autonomous Republic of Crimea The Autonomous Republic of Crimea is a ''de jure'' administrative division of Ukraine encompassing most of Crimea that was unilaterally annexed by Russia in 2014. The Autonomous Republic of Crimea occupies most of the peninsula,oblasts An oblast ( or ) is a type of administrative division in Bulgaria and several post-Soviet states, including Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. Historically, it was used in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. The term ''oblast'' is often translated i ...

s * populated places (

cities A city is a human settlement of a substantial size. The term "city" has different meanings around the world and in some places the settlement can be very small. Even where the term is limited to larger settlements, there is no universally agree ...

, rural settlements, villages) * urban districts *

s (communities) In an administrative reform in 2020, all populated places in the country (except for two cities with special status, Kyiv and

Sevastopol Sevastopol ( ), sometimes written Sebastopol, is the largest city in Crimea and a major port on the Black Sea. Due to its strategic location and the navigability of the city's harbours, Sevastopol has been an important port and naval base th ...

) were resubordinated to raions. The new figure of 136 raions includes 10 in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and

; since September 2023, the Crimean raions are functional.

First level

There are three types of first-level administrative divisions: 24 oblasts (regions), 1 autonomous republic and 2 cities with special status.

List

Autonomous republic

The Autonomous Republic of Crimea () geographically encompasses the major portion of the Crimean peninsula in southern Ukraine. Its capital is

Simferopol Simferopol ( ), also known as Aqmescit, is the second-largest city on the Crimea, Crimean Peninsula. The city, along with the rest of Crimea, is internationally recognised as part of Ukraine, but controlled by Russia. It is considered the cap ...

. The Autonomous Republic of Crimea is the only region within Ukraine that has its own constitution. On 16 March 2014, after the occupation of Crimea by the Russian military, a referendum on joining the Russian Federation was held. A majority of votes supported the measure. On 21 March 2014, the Russian Duma voted to annex Crimea as a subject into the Russian Federation. The Ukrainian government does not recognize the referendum or annexation of Crimea as legitimate. On 27 March, the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 68/262 by 100 to 11 votes, recognizing the referendum as invalid and denying any legal change in the status of Crimea and Sevastopol.

Oblasts

An oblast (; ) is on the first level of the administrative division of Ukraine. Most oblasts are named after their administrative center. Volyn and Zakarpattia oblasts, whose respective capitals are Lutsk and Uzhhorod, are named after the historic regions

Volhynia Volhynia or Volynia ( ; see #Names and etymology, below) is a historic region in Central and Eastern Europe, between southeastern Poland, southwestern Belarus, and northwestern Ukraine. The borders of the region are not clearly defined, but in ...

and

Transcarpathia Transcarpathia (, ) is a historical region on the border between Central and Eastern Europe, mostly located in western Ukraine's Zakarpattia Oblast. From the Hungarian Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin, conquest of the Carpathian Basin ...

Cities with special status

Two cities have special status ():

Kyiv Kyiv, also Kiev, is the capital and most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both sides of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2, ...

and

. Their special status puts them on the same administrative level as the oblasts, and thus under the direct supervision of the state via their respective local state administrations, which constitute the executive bodies of the cities. Following the

annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation In February and March 2014, Russia invaded the Crimea, Crimean Peninsula, part of Ukraine, and then annexed it. This took place in the relative power vacuum immediately following the Revolution of Dignity. It marked the beginning of the Russ ...

, Sevastopol is controlled by Russia and is incorporated as a

federal subject of Russia The federal subjects of Russia, also referred to as the subjects of the Russian Federation () or simply as the subjects of the federation (), are the administrative division, constituent entities of Russia, its top-level political division ...

Second level

Raions

Raions (; ) are smaller territorial units of subdivision in Ukraine. There are 136 raions. Following the December 2019 draft

constitutional A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organization or other type of entity, and commonly determines how that entity is to be governed. When these princ ...

changes submitted to the Verkhovna Rada by President

Volodymyr Zelenskyy Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy (born 25 January 1978) is a Ukrainian politician and former entertainer who has served as the sixth and current president of Ukraine since 2019. He took office five years after the start of the Russo-Ukraini ...

, 136 new raions have replaced the former 490 raions of Ukraine.

Urban districts

An urban district is subordinate to the city administration.

Third level

Hromadas

The territorial hromadas (; lit. 'territorial community'; ), or simply hromadas (; ) were established by the

Government of Ukraine The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine (), commonly referred to as the Government of Ukraine (), is the highest body of state Executive (government), executive power in Ukraine. As the Cabinet of Ministers of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republi ...

on 12 June 2020 as a part of administrative reform that started in 2015. There are three types of hromadas: ''rural'' (), ''settlement'' () and ''urban'' (). There are 1469 hromadas in total (as of November 1, 2023).

History

Cossack Hetmanate

The

Cossack Hetmanate The Cossack Hetmanate (; Cossack Hetmanate#Name, see other names), officially the Zaporozhian Host (; ), was a Ukrainian Cossacks, Cossack state. Its territory was located mostly in central Ukraine, as well as in parts of Belarus and southwest ...

was divided into military-administrative districts known as regimental districts (''polks'') whose number fluctuated with the size of the Hetmanate's territory. In 1649, when the Hetmanate controlled both the right and left banks, it included 16 such districts. After the loss of Right-bank Ukraine, this number was reduced to ten. The regimental districts were further divided into companies ('' sotnias''), which were administered by captains ('' sotnyk''). The lowest division was the kurin. File:Kropyvna polk.svg, Kropyvna Regiment File:Lubny polk.svg,

Lubny Regiment The Lubny Regiment () was one of ten territorial-administrative subdivisions of the Cossack Hetmanate. The regiment's capital was the city of Lubny, now in Poltava Oblast of central Ukraine. Other major cities of the regiment were Pyriatyn, Hlynsk ...

File:Chyhyryn polk.svg, Chyhyryn Regiment File:Chernihiv polk.svg, Chernihiv Regiment File:Nizhyn polk.svg,

Nizhyn Regiment The Nizhyn Regiment () was one of ten territorial-administrative subdivisions of the Cossack Hetmanate. The regiment's capital was the city of Nizhyn, now in Chernihiv Oblast of central Ukraine. Other major cities of the regiment were Hlukhiv and ...

Ukrainian People's Republic

Ukrainian People Republic administrative division

According to the Constitution of the Ukrainian People's Republic, the country was divided into zemlias (lands), volosts and hromadas (communities). This law was not fully implemented as on 29 April 1918 there was the anti-socialist coup in Kyiv, after which

Pavlo Skoropadskyi Pavlo Petrovych Skoropadskyi (; – 26 April 1945) was a Ukrainian aristocrat, military and state leader, who served as the Hetman of all Ukraine, hetman of the Ukrainian State throughout 1918 following a 1918 Ukrainian coup d'état, coup d'éta ...

reverted the reform back to the

governorate A governorate or governate is an administrative division headed by a governor. As English-speaking nations tend to call regions administered by governors either states or provinces, the term ''governorate'' is typically used to calque divisions ...

-type administration.

Soviet Ukraine

Before the introduction of oblasts in 1932,

Soviet Ukraine The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, abbreviated as the Ukrainian SSR, UkrSSR, and also known as Soviet Ukraine or just Ukraine, was one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union from 1922 until 1991. Under the Soviet one-party m ...

comprised 40 okruhas, which had replaced the former Russian Imperial governorate subdivisions. In 1932 the territory of the Soviet Ukraine was re-established based on oblasts. At the same time, most of the

Western Ukraine Western Ukraine or West Ukraine (, ) refers to the western territories of Ukraine. There is no universally accepted definition of the territory's boundaries, but the contemporary Ukrainian administrative regions ( oblasts) of Chernivtsi, I ...

at the time formed part of the

Second Polish Republic The Second Polish Republic, at the time officially known as the Republic of Poland, was a country in Central and Eastern Europe that existed between 7 October 1918 and 6 October 1939. The state was established in the final stage of World War I ...

and shared in the Polish form of administrative division based on voivodeships.

References

External links

* * * * {{Authority control

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...