Oblasts
and autonomous republic
1 Cherkasy 10 Khmelnytskyi 19 Sumy
2 Chernihiv 11 Kirovohrad 20 Ternopil
3 Chernivtsi 12 Kiev Oblast 21 Vinnytsia
4 Crimea 13 Luhansk 22 Volyn
5 Dnipropetrovsk 14 Lviv 23 Zakarpattia
6 Donetsk 15 Mykolaiv 24 Zaporizhia
7 Ivano-Frankivsk 16 Odessa 25 Zhytomyr
8 Kharkiv 17 Poltava
9 Kherson 18 Rivne
At 603,700 km² (233,074 mi²), Ukraine is the
world's 44th-largest country (after the Central African Republic). It is
comparable in size to Botswana, and is somewhat smaller than the US state of
Texas.
The Ukrainian landscape consists mostly of fertile plains, or steppes, and
plateaus, crossed by rivers such as the Dnieper, Seversky Donets, Dniester
and the Southern Buh as they flow south into the Black Sea and the smaller
Sea of Azov. To the southwest the delta of the Danube forms the border with
Romania. The country's only mountains are the Carpathian Mountains in the
west, of which the highest is the Hora Hoverla at 2,061 metres (6,762 ft),
and those in the Crimean peninsula, in the extreme south along the coast.
Ukraine has a mostly temperate continental climate, though a more
mediterranean climate is found on the southern Crimean coast. Precipitation
is disproportionately distributed; it is highest in the west and north and
lesser in the east and southeast. Winters vary from cool along the Black Sea
to cold farther inland. Summers are warm across the greater part of the
country, but generally hot in the south.Current
Ukrainian economy is a typical example of the post soviet era - developing economy. The World Bank classifies Ukraine as a lower middle-income state. Among significant issues there are underdeveloped infrastructure and transportation, corruption and bureaucracy, lack of modern-minded professionals - despite big number of universities. But rapidly growing Ukrainian economy is very interesting emerging market with relatively big population, and high profits associated with high risks. The Ukrainian stock market grew up 10 times between 2000 and 2006, including the tremendous 341% growth in 2004, followed by 28% growth in 2005, and 24% growth in 2006.
The country imports most energy supplies, especially oil and natural gas, and to a large extend depends on Russia as the only monopolistic energy supplier, although lately Ukraine has been trying to diversify its sources.
According to the Ukrainian Census of 2001, ethnic Ukrainians make up 77.8%
of the population. Other significant ethnic groups are Russians (17.3%),
Belarusians (0.6%), Moldovans (0.5%), Crimean Tatars (0.5%), Bulgarians
(0.4%), Hungarians (0.3%), Romanians (0.3%), Poles (0.3%), Jews (0.2%),
Armenians (0.2%), Greeks (0.2%) and Tatars (0.2%).[4]
The industrial regions in the east and south-east are the most heavily
populated, and about 67.2% of the population lives in urban areas.
Ukrainian is the only official state language. Russian, which was a de facto
official language in the Soviet Union, is widely spoken, especially in
eastern and southern Ukraine. According to the census, 67.5% of the
population declared Ukrainian as their native language and 29.6% declared
Russian. It is sometimes difficult to determine the extent of the two
languages, since many people use a Surzhyk (a mixture of Ukrainian and
Russian where the vocabulary is often combined with Ukrainian grammar and
pronunciation)
The dominant religion in Ukraine is Eastern Orthodox Christianity, which is currently split between three Church bodies; the distant second is the Eastern Rite Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, which practices the same liturgical and spiritual tradition as Eastern Orthodoxy, but is in communion with the See of Peter and recognizes the primacy of the Pope as head of the Church. There are also smaller groups of Roman Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and Muslim faithful.
source: wikipedia
