Kharkiv Oblast (Харківська область, Kharkivs’ka oblast’ in Ukrainian; Харьковская область, Khar’kovskaya oblast’ in Russian) is an oblast of eastern Ukraine. The oblast borders Russia to the north, Luhansk Oblast to the east, Donetsk Oblast to the south-east, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast to the south-west, Poltava Oblast to the west and Sumy Oblast to the north-west. The area of the oblast is 31,400 km², corresponding to 5.2% of the total territory of Ukraine.

The oblast is the third most populous region of Ukraine, with a population of 2,857,751 (as of 2004), more than half (1.5 million) of whom live in the city of Kharkiv (Kharkov), the oblast's capital. While the Russian language is primarily spoken in the city of Kharkiv, elsewhere in the oblast most inhabitants speak a mixture of Russian and Ukrainian called Surzhik.

History

The territory of the Kharkiv oblast has been permanently inhabited since at least the late Paleolithic period (10,000–12,000 years ago) but archaeological evidence indicates a human (Neanderthal) presence as early as the Mousterian period some 80,000 years ago.

The territory was relatively sparsely inhabited until the 1630s, when large numbers of Ukrainians began to settle there before and during the Chmielnicki Uprising. Most of the settlers were migrants from the Dnieper region, many of whom were fleeing fighting between Cossacks, Poles and Tatars. They called the newly settled region the Sloboda Ukraine ("Free Ukraine") or Slobozhanshchina, as the area is still sometimes called, and ruled it from the newly established fortress-city of Kharkov (founded 1656). In 1654, the region was incorporated into Muscovy (and subsequently the Russian Empire) under the terms of the Treaty of Pereyaslav.

Over the next 340 years, the area became heavily Russified. Kharkov itself became the cultural and administrative centre of the Russian Empire in the mid-18th century, and served as the capital of the Ukrainian SSR from 1919 until 1934, when the Soviet authorities moved the capital back to Kiev. The modern Kharkiv oblast is a relatively recent creation, having been established on 27 February 1932. It saw major fighting during World War II in several Battles of Kharkov between 1941 and 1943.

Economy

The Kharkiv oblast has a primarily industrially based economy, including engineering, metallurgy, manufacturing, production of chemicals and food processing. It also has an important agricultural sector with 1.9 million hectares of arable land (comprising 5.9% of the total arable lands of Ukraine).

External links

• Kharkiv Oblast Facts & Figures