Zaporizhya Oblast

Zaporizhzhia Oblast (), commonly referred to as Zaporizhzhia (), is an oblast (region) in south-east Ukraine. Its administrative centre is the city of Zaporizhzhia. The oblast covers an area of , and has a population of The oblast is an important part of Ukraine's industry and agriculture.

Most of the oblast's area, including all of the coast, has been under Russian military occupation since the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, although the capital and the majority of the population have remained under Ukrainian administration. In September 2022, Russia declared it had annexed the Zaporizhzhia oblast based on the results of a disputed referendum. The referendum and subsequent annexation are not internationally recognized.

To the south, Zaporizhzhia Oblast covers roughly of coastline of the Sea of Azov, as part of a coastal region known as Pryazovia.

Geography

The area of the oblast is 27,183 km²; its population (estimated as of 1 January 2013) was 1,785,243.

Zaporizhzhia Oblast is located within the regions of Zaporizhzhia (northern part) and Pryazovia (southern part).

Cities

Its largest cities by population are:

# Zaporizhzhia
# Melitopol – under Russian occupation
# Berdiansk – under Russian occupation
# Enerhodar (location of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant) – under Russian occupation
# Tokmak – under Russian occupation
# Polohy – under Russian occupation
# Dniprorudne – under Russian occupation
# Vilniansk
# Orikhiv
# Huliaipole
# Vasylivka – under Russian occupation

Relief

Zaporizhzhia Oblast is characterized by a flat landscape. Soils are mostly chernozem. Knowledge of the relief of the Zaporizhzhia Oblast today is especially important because of the problem of land reclamation and its more intensive use.

The territory of Zaporizhzhia Oblast as a whole has a flat topography, but there are markedly elevated and depressed areas, which differ in shape, origin, and age.

The highest central-eastern part of the oblast is the Azov Upland. It extends to the east and to the territory of Donetsk Oblast, where it meets the Donetsk ridge. In the south, between the Azov Upland and the Sea of Azov, is the western part of the Azov coastal plain, which flows into the Black Sea west of the Molochna River. The northeastern end of the coastal plain merges with the Zaporizhzhia inner plain, which borders the southeastern outskirts of the Dnieper Upland. Thus, the territory of Zaporizhzhia Oblast consists of two distinct geomorphological parts: the outskirts of the Azov and Dnipro uplands, which structurally correspond to the southeastern part of the Ukrainian crystalline massif and the outskirts of the coastal Pryazov and Black Sea plains, which are located within the Black Sea basin.

History

In antiquity, an area which roughly corresponds to the modern Zaporizhzhia Oblast was called the land of Gerrhos, according to Herodotus. This area was the burial place of the kings of the "Royal Scythians".

Historically, at various times, the territory was ruled either entirely or partly by Scythia, Old Great Bulgaria, Khazars, the Mongol Empire, Lithuania, the Crimean Khanate, Poland, and Russia. Khortytsia, a former fortress of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, is located in the oblast. In 1917–1920 the territory passed subsequently between the Bolsheviks, Ukrainians, White Russians, Makhnovists, the Bolsheviks once again, White Russians once again, and eventually fell to the Bolsheviks in late 1920.

The modern Zaporizhzhia Oblast was created as part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic on 10 January 1939 out of the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast.

During the 1991 Ukrainian independence referendum, 90.66% of votes in the oblast were in favor of the Declaration of Independence of Ukraine

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