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Ukraine is subdivided into 24 oblasts (provinces), one autonomous republic, and two "cities with special status".

Overview

The system of Ukrainian subdivisions reflects country's status as a unitary state (as stated in the country's constitution) with unified legal and administrative regime for each unit. However, experts agree that the wide autonomy of Crimea, the cultural and historical differences between regions, combined with lack of clarity in separation of powers between the levels of government diminish the formal unity of Ukraine significantly. This has the effect of slowing integration and causing local underdevelopment. The issue of administrative reform are routinely brought up and several projects were proposed but failed to get significant traction. Some of the proposed steps include the integration of a few small oblasts, the broadening of oblast and city authority, clarifying the authority and eliminating the competition between the locally elected and centrally appointed bodies.

For an understanding of the cultural and socioeconomic differences within the country, a knowledge of the Ukrainian historical regions is as crucial as studying its administrative structure.

General scheme of administrative subdivision

Those three types of national-level units are further subdivided into raions (districts). Urban-type settlements are subordinated to either the oblast, or raion, depending on their population and socio-economic importance (see also: List of cities in Ukraine). The raions (districts) are a constituent part of oblasts, but also of large urban settlements (i.e. cities and megacities). The typical misto may be considered to be a city, not a town (compare to City status in the United Kingdom). However, the city's subordination to either oblast or raion should be taken into account, especially in the political sense. There are also a few lowest-level administrative units, which may be generally called villages (Template:Lang-ua).

Notes

1. Romanized using Ukrainian National standard. Details at Romanization of Ukrainian.
2. Province is more precise because region may also refer to supranational geographic entity.
3. Region is ambiguous since it usually refers to larger national-level units; area is inaccurate.

Oblasts

Most of Ukraine's oblasts (provinces) are named after their capital cities, officially called "centers" (Ukrainian singular: обласний центр, oblasnyi tsentr). The name of each oblast is a relative adjective, formed by adding a feminine suffix to the name of respective center city. E.g. Poltava is a center of Poltavs'ka oblast' (Poltava Oblast).

Most of them are also sometimes referred to in a feminine noun form, following the convention of traditional regional place names, ending with the suffix "-shchyna". E.g. Poltava Oblast is also called Poltavshchyna.

Exceptions to this rule include:

• Two oblasts, Volyn and Zakarpattia, which retain the names of their respective historical regions, Volyn' (Volhynia) and Zakarpattia (Transcarpathia), whose respective capitals are Lutsk and Uzhhorod.

• Kiev, which is a municipality independent of the surrounding Kiev Oblast, but also the center of that oblast (administrative bodies of the oblast are situated inside the city).

An oblast center in Ukraine is usually the largest and most developed city in given province.

See also List of etymologies of country subdivision names: "Ukraine".

Autonomous Republic of Crimea

The Autonomous Republic of Crimea (Template:Lang-uk, Template:Lang-crh), formerly Crimea Oblast of the Ukrainian SSR, is geographically the main part of Crimean peninsula in the south of Ukraine. Its capital is Simferopol.

Municipalities

Municipalities, (i.e. cities with special status, subordinated to Ukraine's central government) include Kiev (the capital of the country) and Sevastopol. They retain their status from the administrative subdivision of Ukrainian SSR. The exact legal status of each city is determined by special laws.

Raions

Raions are small territorial units of subdivision of Ukraine. There are 490 raions in 24 oblasts and Crimea autonomous republic of Ukraine. An average area of Ukrainian raion is 1,200 km²., an average population of raions is 52,000 people.

Metro Areas

Ukraine has five major agglomerated metropolitan areas (conurbations).

• Kyiv includes cities such as Irpin, Boryspil, Fastiv among others
• Kharkiv includes cities such as Chuhuiv, Merefa, and numerous other settlements
• Donetsk includes cities such as Makiivka, Khartsyzk, and others
• Dnipropetrovsk with Dniprodzerzhynsk and Novomoskovsk
• Odessa with Illichivsk and Ovidiopol

Other minor metro areas are:

• Kryvyi Rih and Zhovti Vody
• Lviv with Vynnyky and Pustomyty
• Horlivka and Yenakieve
• Zaporizhia with Vilniansk
• Mykolaiv with Voskresenske
• Luhansk with Oleksandrivsk and Schastia
• Mariupol with Staryi Krym

These conurbation areas are not officially recognized and remain to be administered according to official oblast-raion system of subdivision.

Regions of Ukraine

Please move to Geography of Ukraine, cannot edit that article, WP gives error. Due to geographical, historical, social, economic, and political factors, there is a semi-official devision with respect to certain region. The map left shows the broad sense of a particular region. The terms, Ukraine, East, South and Central Ukraine are often used. There is no unified description on what includes/excludes one region or another. For example Western Ukraine, can mean either the historic region of Galicia, or can also include Volhynia, Podolia, Transcarpathia and/or Bukovina. Likewise Eastern Ukraine can mean either exclussively the Donbass, or include Sloboda, Taurida etc. South Ukraine can often be used to describe the same Taurida, Crimea and right-bank Dnieper regions of Mykolayiv and Odessa oblasts. Alternatively it could include the Donbass, particularly the adjacent land to the Azov Sea. Sometimes the terms South-Eastern Ukraine to unite both terms. Central Ukraine, often denotes what is not included in Western and South-Eastern definitions.

Other terms are rearely used such as South-West Ukraine, which can denote either Transcarpathia, or Budjak. 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 usually means the historic region of Volhynia. This makes the term North-Eastern Ukraine rarest of them all, and is either used as synomon for the narrow definition of Northern Ukraine, or as synomon for Sloboda Ukraine (with or without the adjacent territories in Russia), or for Kharkiv Oblast alone.

See also

• Geography of Ukraine
• Historical regions of Ukraine
• ISO 3166-2:UA

External links

• Template:Uk icon Subdivisions of Ukraine– Verhovna Rada site
• Template:En icon List of raions– sub-subdivisions of oblasts

• Subdivisions of Ukraine
• Lists of country subdivisions
• Country subdivisions of Europe