Dnipropetrovsk Oblast (), is an

oblast 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 ...

(province) in simultaneously southern, eastern and central

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 ...

, the most important industrial region of the country. It was created on February 27, 1932. Dnipropetrovsk Oblast has a population of about approximately 80% of whom live centering on

administrative center An administrative centre is a seat of regional administration or local government, or a county town, or the place where the central administration of a commune, is located. In countries with French as the administrative language, such as Belgiu ...

Dnipro Dnipro is Ukraine's fourth-largest city, with about one million inhabitants. It is located in the eastern part of Ukraine, southeast of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on the Dnieper River, Dnipro River, from which it takes its name. Dnipro is t ...

, Kryvyi Rih, Kamianske, Nikopol and Pavlohrad. The

Dnieper River The Dnieper or Dnepr ( ), also called Dnipro ( ), is one of the major transboundary rivers of Europe, rising in the Valdai Hills near Smolensk, Russia, before flowing through Belarus and Ukraine to the Black Sea. Approximately long, with ...

runs through the oblast.

Geography

Most of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, including Dnipro Raion, is located in eastern Ukraine, though some parts are in central and southern Ukraine, such as Kamianske Raion and Nikopol Raion, respectively. The area of the oblast (31,974 km²) comprises about 5.3% of the total area of the country. Its longitude from north to south is 130 km, from east to west – 300 km. The oblast borders the

Poltava Poltava (, ; , ) is a city located on the Vorskla, Vorskla River in Central Ukraine, Central Ukraine. It serves as the administrative center of Poltava Oblast as well as Poltava Raion within the oblast. It also hosts the administration of Po ...

and

Kharkiv Kharkiv, also known as Kharkov, is the second-largest List of cities in Ukraine, city in Ukraine.

oblasts on the north, the

Donetsk Oblast Donetsk Oblast, also referred to as Donechchyna (, ), is an Oblasts of Ukraine, oblast in eastern Ukraine. It is Ukraine's most populous province, with around 4.1 million residents. Its capital city, administrative centre is Donetsk, though d ...

on the east, the

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 ...

and

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 ...

oblasts on the south, and the

Mykolaiv Mykolaiv ( ), also known as Nikolaev ( ) is a List of cities in Ukraine, city and a hromada (municipality) in southern Ukraine. Mykolaiv is the Administrative centre, administrative center of Mykolaiv Raion (Raions of Ukraine, district) and Myk ...

and Kirovohrad oblasts on the west. Historically, it is located in the region of

. The Black Sea Lowland covers about half of the territory of the oblast, where it lies only within the west bank of the Dnieper. In Terny, a Ternivsky meteorite crater is located. It is in diameter and its age is estimated at 280 ± 10 million years (

Permian The Permian ( ) is a geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system which spans 47 million years, from the end of the Carboniferous Period million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Triassic Period 251.902 Mya. It is the s ...

). The crater is not exposed at the surface. The Dnieper Upland contains a number of minerals including

iron Iron is a chemical element; it has symbol Fe () and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, forming much of Earth's o ...

manganese Manganese is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Mn and atomic number 25. It is a hard, brittle, silvery metal, often found in minerals in combination with iron. Manganese was first isolated in the 1770s. It is a transition m ...

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...

graphite Graphite () is a Crystallinity, crystalline allotrope (form) of the element carbon. It consists of many stacked Layered materials, layers of graphene, typically in excess of hundreds of layers. Graphite occurs naturally and is the most stable ...

brown coal Lignite (derived from Latin ''lignum'' meaning 'wood'), often referred to as brown coal, is a soft, brown, Combustion, combustible sedimentary rock formed from naturally compressed peat. It has a carbon content around 25–35% and is considered ...

, and

kaolin Kaolinite ( ; also called kaolin) is a clay mineral, with the chemical composition Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4. It is a layered silicate mineral, with one tetrahedral sheet of silica () linked through oxygen atoms to one octahedral sheet of alumina (). ...

. Kryvbas is an important economic region, specializing in iron ore mining and the steel industry. It is arguably the main iron ore region of

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural and socio-economic connotations. Its eastern boundary is marked by the Ural Mountain ...

. Named after the city of Kryvyi Rih, the mining base of the region occupies the southwestern part of the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, as well as the small neighboring parts of the Kirovohrad and

Kherson Oblast Kherson Oblast (, ; ), also known as Khersonshchyna (, ), is an administrative divisions of Ukraine, oblast (province) in southern Ukraine. It is located just north of Crimea. Its administrative center is Kherson, on the northern or right bank ...

s. The region possesses major deposits of iron ore and some other metallurgical ores. To exploit them, several large mining companies were founded here in the middle of the 20th century. Most of them are located in Kryvyi Rih itself, which is the longest city in Europe (roughly in a straight line from one end to another).

Geology

Much of the Dnipropetrovsk oblast is located within the boundaries of the Ukrainian Shield and only the northern regions and the extreme eastern part of the territory are confined to the south-eastern side of the Dnipro-Donets depression. In the geological structure of the region, the breeds come from the archaea, the

Proterozoic The Proterozoic ( ) is the third of the four geologic eons of Earth's history, spanning the time interval from 2500 to 538.8 Mya, and is the longest eon of Earth's geologic time scale. It is preceded by the Archean and followed by the Phanerozo ...

, the

Paleozoic The Paleozoic ( , , ; or Palaeozoic) Era is the first of three Era (geology), geological eras of the Phanerozoic Eon. Beginning 538.8 million years ago (Ma), it succeeds the Neoproterozoic (the last era of the Proterozoic Eon) and ends 251.9 Ma a ...

, the

Mesozoic The Mesozoic Era is the Era (geology), era of Earth's Geologic time scale, geological history, lasting from about , comprising the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous Period (geology), Periods. It is characterized by the dominance of archosaurian r ...

and the

Cenozoic The Cenozoic Era ( ; ) is Earth's current geological era, representing the last 66million years of Earth's history. It is characterized by the dominance of mammals, insects, birds and angiosperms (flowering plants). It is the latest of three g ...

History

In the 6th to 8th centuries AD the first settlements of Slavs appeared on the banks of the Dnieper within the region. During the period of

Kievan Rus' Kievan Rus', also known as Kyivan Rus,. * was the first East Slavs, East Slavic state and later an amalgam of principalities in Eastern Europe from the late 9th to the mid-13th century.John Channon & Robert Hudson, ''Penguin Historical At ...

(9th to 12th centuries AD) the Dnieper River functioned as one of the main trade corridors of medieval Eastern Europe, part of the route "from the Varangians to the Greeks", which connected the Baltic Sea region with the

Crimea Crimea ( ) is a peninsula in Eastern Europe, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, almost entirely surrounded by the Black Sea and the smaller Sea of Azov. The Isthmus of Perekop connects the peninsula to Kherson Oblast in mainland Ukrain ...

and with the capital of

Byzantium Byzantium () or Byzantion () was an ancient Greek city in classical antiquity that became known as Constantinople in late antiquity and Istanbul today. The Greek name ''Byzantion'' and its Latinization ''Byzantium'' continued to be used as a n ...

Constantinople Constantinople (#Names of Constantinople, see other names) was a historical city located on the Bosporus that served as the capital of the Roman Empire, Roman, Byzantine Empire, Byzantine, Latin Empire, Latin, and Ottoman Empire, Ottoman empire ...

. The Dnieper also served as a major route for transporting the armies of Kyiv princes on their way to the Byzantine coastal cities in the early 9th and late 9th centuries. At the beginning of the 15th century, Tatar tribes inhabiting the right bank of the Dnieper were driven away by the

Grand Duchy of Lithuania The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a sovereign state in northeastern Europe that existed from the 13th century, succeeding the Kingdom of Lithuania, to the late 18th century, when the territory was suppressed during the 1795 Partitions of Poland, ...

. However, by the mid-15th century, the Nogai (who lived north of the

Sea of Azov The Sea of Azov is an inland Continental shelf#Shelf seas, shelf sea in Eastern Europe connected to the Black Sea by the narrow (about ) Strait of Kerch, and sometimes regarded as a northern extension of the Black Sea. The sea is bounded by Ru ...

) and the

Crimean Khanate The Crimean Khanate, self-defined as the Throne of Crimea and Desht-i Kipchak, and in old European historiography and geography known as Little Tartary, was a Crimean Tatars, Crimean Tatar state existing from 1441 to 1783, the longest-lived of th ...

invaded these lands. The Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Crimean Khanate agreed to a border along the Dnieper, and farther east along the Samara River, i.e. through what is today the city of Dnipro. At this time there appeared a new force, the

Cossacks The Cossacks are a predominantly East Slavic languages, East Slavic Eastern Christian people originating in the Pontic–Caspian steppe of eastern Ukraine and southern Russia. Cossacks played an important role in defending the southern borde ...

- armed free men not subject to any feudal lord - who soon came to dominate the region. They later became known as

Zaporozhian Cossacks The Zaporozhian Cossacks (in Latin ''Cossacorum Zaporoviensis''), also known as the Zaporozhian Cossack Army or the Zaporozhian Host (), were Cossacks who lived beyond (that is, downstream from) the Dnieper Rapids. Along with Registered Cossa ...

, from

, the lands south of

Naddniprianshchyna The term Dnieper Ukraine (), usually refers to territory on either side of the middle course of the Dnieper River. The Ukrainian name derives from ''nad‑'' (prefix: "above, over") + ''Dnipró'' ("Dnieper") + ''‑shchyna'' (suffix denoting a ge ...

(Zaporizhzhia translates to "the Land Beyond the

Rapids Rapids are sections of a river where the river bed has a relatively steep stream gradient, gradient, causing an increase in water velocity and turbulence. Flow, gradient, constriction, and obstacles are four factors that are needed for a rapid t ...

"). This period of raids and fighting caused considerable devastation and depopulation in the

Pontic steppe Pontic, from the Greek ''pontos'' (, ), or "sea", may refer to: The Black Sea Places * The Pontic colonies, on its northern shores * Pontus (region), a region on its southern shores * The Pontic–Caspian steppe, steppelands stretching from n ...

; the area became known as the "Wilderness" or the " Wild Fields". In 1635, the Polish government built the Kodak fortress above the Dnieper Rapids at ''Kodaky'', partly as a result of rivalry in the region between Poland,

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

and the

, and partly to maintain control over Cossack activity (i.e. to suppress the Cossack raiders and to prevent peasants moving out of the area).Plokhy, Serhii, ''The Cossacks and Religion in Early Modern Ukraine'', pub Oxford University Press, 2001, , pages 26, 37, 40, 51, 60–1, 142, 245, and 268. On the night of 3 or 4 August 1635, the Cossacks of Ivan Sulyma captured the fort by surprise, burning it down and butchering the garrison of about 200 West European mercenaries under Jean Marion. The fort, rebuilt by French engineer

Guillaume Le Vasseur de Beauplan Guillaume Levasseur de Beauplan ( – 6 December 1673) or William le Vasseur de Beauplan was a French-Polish cartographer, engineer and architect. Beauplan is best known for his maps of Ukraine (which he spelt as ''Ukranie'' or ''Vkranie'', wi ...

for the Polish government in 1638, had a mercenary garrison. ''Kodak'' was captured by

on 1 October 1648, and was garrisoned by the Cossacks until its demolition in accordance with the Treaty of the Pruth in 1711.www.day.kyiv.ua ''Above Kodak, this year the unique fortress marks its 375th anniversary''
by Mykola Chaban, 2010. Under the Treaty of Pereyaslav of 1654, the territory came within the sphere of influence of the Moscow-based

Tsardom of Russia The Tsardom of Russia, also known as the Tsardom of Moscow, was the centralized Russian state from the assumption of the title of tsar by Ivan the Terrible, Ivan IV in 1547 until the foundation of the Russian Empire by Peter the Great in 1721. ...

. In 1774 Prince Grigori Potemkin was appointed governor of Novorossiysk Governorate, and after the destruction of the Zaporozhian Sich in 1775, he started founding cities in the region and encouraging foreign settlers. The city of ''Yekaterinoslav'' (present-day Dnipro) was founded in 1776, not in its current location, but at the confluence of the River Samara with the River Kil'chen' at Loshakivka, north of the Dnieper. On May 8, 1775, after the end of the Russian-Turkish War of 1768 to 1774, Russian authorities opened a postal station and track which linked

Kremenchuk Kremenchuk (; , , also spelt Kremenchug, ) is an industrial city in central Ukraine which stands on the banks of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. The city serves as the administrative center of Kremenchuk Raion and Kremenchuk urban hromada within ...

city, the Kinburn foreland and Ochakiv, all locations of the Imperial Russian Army. In December 1796, Emperor Paul I re-established the Novorossiysk Governorate, mostly with land from the former Yekaterinoslav Viceroyalty. In 1802, this province was divided into the Nikolayev Governorate (known as the Kherson Governorate from 1803),

Yekaterinoslav Governorate Yekaterinoslav Governorate} was an administrative-territorial unit (''guberniya'') of the Russian Empire, with its capital in Yekaterinoslav. Covering an area of , and being composed of a inhabitant of 2,113,674 by the census of 1897, it bordere ...

, and the Taurida Governorate. The capital of the Yekaterinoslav Governorate was the city of Yekaterinoslav (modern Dnipro). It was located within the former lands of the Zaporizhian Sich. The governorate bordered to the north with the

Kharkov Governorate Kharkov Governorate was an administrative-territorial unit (''guberniya'') of the Russian Empire founded in 1835. It embraced the historical region of Sloboda Ukraine. From 1765 to 1780 and from 1796 to 1835 the governorate was called Sloboda Uk ...

and

Poltava Governorate Poltava Governorate was an administrative-territorial unit (''guberniya'') of the Russian Empire. It was officially created in 1802 from the disbanded Little Russia Governorate (1796–1802), Little Russia Governorate and had its capital in Polt ...

, to the west and southwest with the Kherson Governorate, to the south with the Taurida Governorate and

, and to the east with the

Don Host Oblast Don Host Oblast was a province (''oblast'') of the Russian Empire which consisted of the territory of the Don Cossacks, coinciding approximately with present-day Rostov Oblast in Russia. Its administrative center was Cherkassk, and later Nov ...

. Olexander Paul (1832–1890) discovered iron ore and initiated smelting, and this became the core of a developing a mining district. In 1874 Emperor Alexander II initiated the founding project of a railway, running . This enabled transportation directly to the nearest factories and greatly sped up the development of the region. On 1 August 1925, the Yekaterinoslav Governorate administration was discontinued, and in 1926 the city of Yekterinoslav was renamed Dnipropetrovsk after Ukrainian Soviet

leader Leadership, is defined as the ability of an individual, group, or organization to "", influence, or guide other individuals, teams, or organizations. "Leadership" is a contested term. Specialist literature debates various viewpoints on the co ...

Grigory Petrovsky. Before the introduction of oblasts in 1932, the

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

comprised 40 okrugs, which had replaced the former Russian Imperial ''guberniya'' (governorate) subdivisions. In 1932 the territory of the Ukrainian SSR was re-organized into oblasts. The first oblasts were

Vinnytsia Oblast Vinnytsia Oblast (, ), also referred to as Vinnychchyna (), is an oblasts of Ukraine, oblast in central Ukraine. Its capital city, administrative center is Vinnytsia. The oblast has a population of History Vinnytsia Oblast, first established on ...

Kyiv Oblast Kyiv Oblast (, ), also called Kyivshchyna (, ), is an Administrative divisions of Ukraine, oblast (province) in central and northern Ukraine. It surrounds, but does not include, the city of Kyiv, which is administered as a city with special sta ...

Odesa Oblast Odesa Oblast (), also referred to as Odeshchyna (Одещина), is an administrative divisions of Ukraine, oblast (province) of southwestern Ukraine, located along the northern coast of the Black Sea. Its administrative centre is the city of Ode ...

Kharkiv Oblast Kharkiv Oblast (, ), also referred to as Kharkivshchyna (), is an oblast (province) in eastern Ukraine. Kharkiv borders Luhansk Oblast to the east, Donetsk Oblast to the southeast, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast to the southwest, Poltava Oblast to the w ...

, and Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. Soon after that, in the summer of 1932,

was formed out of eastern parts of Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk oblasts. During the

Holodomor The Holodomor, also known as the Ukrainian Famine, was a mass famine in Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet Ukraine from 1932 to 1933 that killed millions of Ukrainians. The Holodomor was part of the wider Soviet famine of 1930–193 ...

in the 1930s, more than 200 collective farms in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast were put on "Blackboards" which implied a complete blockade of trade and food-aid to villages under-performing in fulfilling grain-procurement quotas; a number representing more than half of all such "Blackboards" throughout all of the Ukrainian SSR. During the 1991 referendum, 90.36% of votes in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast favored the

Declaration of Independence of Ukraine The Act of Declaration of Independence of Ukraine was adopted by the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR (''Verkhovna Rada'') on 24 August 1991.decommunization laws enacted a year earlier. Dnipropetrovsk Oblast was not renamed because it is mentioned by name in 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 ...

, and the oblast can only be renamed by a

constitutional amendment A constitutional amendment (or constitutional alteration) is a modification of the constitution of a polity, organization or other type of entity. Amendments are often interwoven into the relevant sections of an existing constitution, directly alt ...

. In April 2018 a group of over a hundred deputies formally initiated a proposal in the

Ukrainian Parliament The Verkhovna Rada ( ; VR), officially the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, is the unicameral parliament of Ukraine. It consists of 450 deputies presided over by a speaker. The Verkhovna Rada meets in the Verkhovna Rada building in Ukraine's capi ...

to change the name to ''Sicheslav Oblast''; in February 2019, the Verkhovna Rada voted to officially amend the Constitution, thus granting state sanction to the name change. Later that year the Constitutional Court officially approved the change. The oblast's administrative centre and largest city,

, had had the unofficial name "Sicheslav" (commemorating the Zaporizhian Sich) in 1918–21 during the Ukrainian War of Independence. Since then, the renaming process has stalled (), for reasons such as the 2019 presidential and

parliamentary In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

elections, the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

and the

Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...

(2022 onwards). During the Russian invasion, the cities of

, Kryvyi Rih, and Nikopol, among other locations in the region, were bombed by Russia. It was also reported that Russian troops were pushed from areas near Dnipropetrovsk Oblast and Kherson Oblast, near the border. One village bordering Kherson Oblast, Hannivka, may have been occupied and liberated by Ukrainian forces by May 2022. Between 2022 and 2024, there was no further ground fighting and the oblast had remained completely under Ukrainian control. In June 2025, the Institute for the Study of War confirmed that Russian troops entered Dnipropetrovsk Oblast.

Administrative subdivisions

The following data incorporates the number of each type of administrative divisions of the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast: * Administrative center – 1 (

) * Raions – 7; * City districts – 18 (Dnipro – 8, Kryvyi Rih – 7, Kamianske −3); * Settlements – 1504, including: **

Villages A village is a human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Although villages are often located in rural areas, the term urban village ...

– 1438; ** Cities/Towns – 66, including: ***

Urban-type settlement Urban-type settlement, abbreviated: ; , abbreviated: ; ; ; ; . is an official designation for lesser urbanized settlements, used in several Central and Eastern Europe, Central and Eastern European countries. The term was primarily used in the So ...

s – 46; *** Cities – 20. * Village communities – 288. The local administration of the oblast is controlled by the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Rada. The governor of the oblast is the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Rada speaker, appointed by the

President of Ukraine The president of Ukraine (, ) is the head of state of Ukraine. The president represents the nation in international relations, administers the foreign political activity of the state, conducts negotiations and concludes international treaties. ...

. Since July 2020, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast consists of the following seven raions: * Dnipro Raion; * Kamianske Raion; * Kryvyi Rih Raion; * Nikopol Raion; * Pavlohrad Raion; * Samar Raion; * Synelnykove Raion.

Demographics

Its population in 2004 was 3,493,062, which constituted 5.3% of the overall Ukrainian population. At the 2001 census, the ethnic groups within the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast were: *

Ukrainians Ukrainians (, ) are an East Slavs, East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine. Their native tongue is Ukrainian language, Ukrainian, and the majority adhere to Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, forming the List of contemporary eth ...

– 79.3%, *

Russians Russians ( ) are an East Slavs, East Slavic ethnic group native to Eastern Europe. Their mother tongue is Russian language, Russian, the most spoken Slavic languages, Slavic language. The majority of Russians adhere to Eastern Orthodox Church ...

– 17.6%, *

Belarusians Belarusians ( ) are an East Slavs, East Slavic ethnic group native to Belarus. They natively speak Belarusian language, Belarusian, an East Slavic language. More than 9 million people proclaim Belarusian ethnicity worldwide. Nearly 7.99&n ...

– 0.8%, *

Jews Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

– 0.4%, *

Armenians Armenians (, ) are an ethnic group indigenous to the Armenian highlands of West Asia.Robert Hewsen, Hewsen, Robert H. "The Geography of Armenia" in ''The Armenian People From Ancient to Modern Times Volume I: The Dynastic Periods: From Antiq ...

– 0.3%, * Azeris – 0.2%, *

Moldovans Moldovans, sometimes referred to as Moldavians (, , ), are an ethnic group native to Moldova, who mostly speak the Romanian language, also referred to locally as Moldovan language, Moldovan. Moldovans form significant communities in Romania, It ...

– 0.12%, * Romanis – 0.11%, *

Tatars Tatars ( )Tatar
in the Collins English Dictionary are a group of Turkic peoples across Eas ...

– 0.11%, *

Germans Germans (, ) are the natives or inhabitants of Germany, or sometimes more broadly any people who are of German descent or native speakers of the German language. The Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, constitution of Germany, imple ...

– 0.11%, * Other – 0.95%; the groups by native language: * Ukrainian 67%, * Russian 32%, * other languages 1%.

Age structure

: ''0–14 years:'' 14.1% (male 241,006/female 226,216) : ''15–64 years:'' 70.2% (male 1,100,602/female 1,219,668) : ''65 years and over:'' 15.7% (male 168,447/female 348,547) (2013 official)

Median age

: ''total:'' 40.3 years : ''male:'' 36.6 years : ''female:'' 43.9 years (2013 official)

Religion

A Pew survey of Dnipropetrovsk residents' religious self-identification showed the following distribution of affiliations: Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) 47.5%,

Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyivan Patriarchate Ukrainian may refer or relate to: * Ukraine, a country in Eastern Europe * Ukrainians, an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine * Demographics of Ukraine * Ukrainian culture, composed of the material and spiritual values of the Ukrainian peopl ...

10.7%,

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

1.3%, Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church 0.8%,

Protestantism Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that emphasizes Justification (theology), justification of sinners Sola fide, through faith alone, the teaching that Salvation in Christianity, salvation comes by unmerited Grace in Christianity, divin ...

32.3%. The oblast has one of the most balanced percentage of religious people in the nation mainly due to large number of ethnic groups. The Jewish community is centered in the Dnipro ( Golden Rose Synagogue) and Kryvyi Rih area, and emerged during a wave of Jewish immigration.

Cities and towns

There are 20 cities and towns on the

. Major population centers today result from historical factors — with the advent of the iron development took place predominantly along the Kryvyi Rih and

, a city located on the

Dnieper The Dnieper or Dnepr ( ), also called Dnipro ( ), is one of the major transboundary rivers of Europe, rising in the Valdai Hills near Smolensk, Russia, before flowing through Belarus and Ukraine to the Black Sea. Approximately long, with ...

. Kryvyi Rih is the center of a large metropolitan area called Kryvyi Rih Metropolitan Region. Ranked by population, the oblast's 13 largest municipalities are: # Coat of arms of Dnipro

(1,080,846) # Coat of Arms of Kryvyi Rih

Kryvyi Rih (662,507) # Kamianske (262,704) # Nikopol (136,280) # Coat of arms of Pavlograd 1811

Pavlohrad (118,816) # Coat of Arms of Novomoskovsk

Samar Samar ( ) is the third-largest and seventh-most populous island in the Philippines, with a total population of 1,909,537 as of the 2020 census. It is located in the eastern Visayas, which are in the central Philippines. The island is divided in ...

(72,439) # Coat of Arms of Zhovti Vody

Zhovti Vody (54,370) # Pokrov COA

Pokrov (46,532) # Marhanets (44,980) # Synelnykove (32,302) # Ternivka CoA

Ternivka (29,253) # Coat of Arms of Pershotravensk

Shakhtarske (29,140) # Coat of Arms of Vilnohirsk

Vilnohirsk (23,782)

Transport

There are eight over-Dnieper bridges and dozens of grade-separated intersections. Several new intersections are under construction.

European route E105 E105 is part of the International E-road network, which is a series of main roads in Europe. It is a north–south reference road, meaning it crosses Europe from north to south, and other E-road numbers have been calculated based on these referen ...

cross Left-bank Dnipro from North to South.

Highway M04 (Ukraine) Highway M04 was a Ukrainian international highway connecting Znamianka to Sorokyne on the border with Russia, where it continued into Russia as the A260. During the Soviet Union, the M04 was part of the M21. The highway stretched through four o ...

and Highway M18 (Ukraine) cross River Dnieper and

from West to East, entering Kryvyi Rih. Overall, roads are in poor technical condition and maintained inadequately. Cisdnieper Railway (NDZ), headquartered in Dnipro, is a component part of the Ukrzaliznytsia (UZ) company. CDR's route map includes all the railroads in the Dnipropetrovsk,

Kharkiv Kharkiv, also known as Kharkov, is the second-largest List of cities in Ukraine, city in Ukraine.

oblasts and the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. As of 2008, Cisdnieper rail system included of track, of which 93,3% were electrified. The CDR consists of five sections (directions), the Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, Kryvyi Rih, and Crimea directions. There are 244 railway stations in the NDR system. More than a dozen ''elektrichka'' stops are located within the city allowing residents of different neighborhoods to use the suburban trains. The cities of Dnipro and Kryvyi Rih are served by a local sales-tax-funded bus, tram, metro and trolleybus systems. Dnipro International Airport and Kryvyi Rih International Airport are the only international airports. The airport of Dnipro serves as one of the hubs for Dniproavia. The airport has non-stop service to over 20 destinations throughout Ukraine and

, as well as to

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

and

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( or , ; ), sometimes rendered as Tel Aviv-Jaffa, and usually referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the Gush Dan metropolitan area of Israel. Located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline and with a popula ...

. Kryvyi Rih International Airport provides limited commercial air service.

Environment

The oblast is situated in the

steppe In physical geography, a steppe () is an ecoregion characterized by grassland plains without closed forests except near rivers and lakes. Steppe biomes may include: * the montane grasslands and shrublands biome * the tropical and subtropica ...

region. Forests in the oblast occupy about 3.9% of the oblast's total territory. The average temperature in the winter balances from −3 to −5 °C and in the summer from 22 to 24 °C. The average annual rainfall is 400–490 mm. During the summer, Dnipropetrovsk oblast is very warm (average day temperature in July is , even hot sometimes . Temperatures as high as have been recorded in May. Winter is not so cold (average day temperature in January is , but when there is no snow and the wind blows hard, it feels extremely cold. A mix of snow and rain happens usually in December. The tender climate, mineral sources, and the curative mud allow opportunities for rest and cure within the region. Here there are 21 health-centers and medicated pensions, 10 rest homes, recreation departments and rest camps for children. The Dnipropetrovsk Oblast has splendid

flora Flora (: floras or florae) is all the plant life present in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring (indigenous (ecology), indigenous) native plant, native plants. The corresponding term for animals is ''fauna'', and for f ...

and

fauna Fauna (: faunae or faunas) is all of the animal life present in a particular region or time. The corresponding terms for plants and fungi are ''flora'' and '' funga'', respectively. Flora, fauna, funga and other forms of life are collectively ...

. Here, there are more than 1700 kinds of vegetation, 7500 kinds of animals (including elk,

wild boar The wild boar (''Sus scrofa''), also known as the wild swine, common wild pig, Eurasian wild pig, or simply wild pig, is a Suidae, suid native to much of Eurasia and North Africa, and has been introduced to the Americas and Oceania. The speci ...

, dappled

deer A deer (: deer) or true deer is a hoofed ruminant ungulate of the family Cervidae (informally the deer family). Cervidae is divided into subfamilies Cervinae (which includes, among others, muntjac, elk (wapiti), red deer, and fallow deer) ...

roe Roe, ( ) or hard roe, is the fully ripe internal egg masses in the ovaries, or the released external egg masses, of fish and certain marine animals such as shrimp, scallop, sea urchins and squid. As a seafood, roe is used both as a cooking, c ...

hare Hares and jackrabbits are mammals belonging to the genus ''Lepus''. They are herbivores and live Solitary animal, solitarily or in pairs. They nest in slight depressions called forms, and their young are precociality, able to fend for themselves ...

, fox,

wolf The wolf (''Canis lupus''; : wolves), also known as the grey wolf or gray wolf, is a Canis, canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of Canis lupus, subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been recognized, includin ...

, etc.) There are also 114 park and nature objects, including 15 state reserves; 3 nature memorials, 24 local parks; 7 landscape parks; 3 park tracts, which altogether make up approximately 260 square kilometres. 217 rivers flow within the area, including 55 rivers which are longer than 25 km, the major one being the

, which crosses through the center of the oblast. Also flowing through the region are two major reservoirs, the Kamianske and

, while the former Kakhovka Reservoir was drained in 2023 following the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam and the subsequent restoration of the Great Meadow. A major channel in the region is the Dnieper-Kryvyi Rih Channel.

Economy

The Dnipropetrovsk Oblast has a high industry potential. There are 712 basic industrial organizations, including 20 different types of economic activity with about 473,4 thousand workers. The area also produces about 16.9% of the total industry production of Ukraine. This places the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast second in Ukraine (after the neighbouring

). Dnipro is a major industrial centre of Ukraine. It has several facilities devoted to heavy industry that produce a wide range of products, including

cast-iron Cast iron is a class of iron–carbon alloys with a carbon content of more than 2% and silicon content around 1–3%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloying elements determine the form in which its car ...

, rolled metal, pipes,

machinery A machine is a physical system that uses power to apply forces and control movement to perform an action. The term is commonly applied to artificial devices, such as those employing engines or motors, but also to natural biological macromolec ...

, different mining combines,

agricultural equipment Agricultural machinery relates to the mechanical structures and devices used in farming or other agriculture. There are many types of such equipment, from hand tools and power tools to tractors and the farm implements that they tow or operate. M ...

tractor A tractor is an engineering vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort (or torque) at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a Trailer (vehicle), trailer or machinery such as that used in agriculture, mining or constructio ...

trolleybus A trolleybus (also known as trolley bus, trolley coach, trackless trolley, trackless tramin the 1910s and 1920sJoyce, J.; King, J. S.; and Newman, A. G. (1986). ''British Trolleybus Systems'', pp. 9, 12. London: Ian Allan Publishing. .or troll ...

es, refrigerators, different chemicals and many others. The most famous and the oldest (founded in the 19th century) is the Metallurgical Plant named after Petrovsky. The city also has big food processing and light industry factories. Many sewing and dress-making factories work for

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

and

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European ...

, using the most advanced technologies, materials and design. Dnipro also formerly dominated in the

aerospace industry Aerospace is a term used to collectively refer to the atmosphere and outer space. Aerospace activity is very diverse, with a multitude of commercial, industrial, and military applications. Aerospace engineering consists of aeronautics and astr ...

since the 1950s: engineering department Yuzhnoye Design Bureau and construction at Pivdenmash. Pivdenmash, the former Yuzhmash, is a manufacturer of space

rocket A rocket (from , and so named for its shape) is a vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using any surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Rocket engines work entirely ...

, buses, trolley buses,

tram A tram (also known as a streetcar or trolley in Canada and the United States) is an urban rail transit in which Rolling stock, vehicles, whether individual railcars or multiple-unit trains, run on tramway tracks on urban public streets; some ...

wind turbine A wind turbine is a device that wind power, converts the kinetic energy of wind into electrical energy. , hundreds of thousands of list of most powerful wind turbines, large turbines, in installations known as wind farms, were generating over ...

s, and

satellite A satellite or an artificial satellite is an object, typically a spacecraft, placed into orbit around a celestial body. They have a variety of uses, including communication relay, weather forecasting, navigation ( GPS), broadcasting, scient ...

s that was inherited from the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

. It is a large state-owned company located in

. Dniproavia, an airline, has its head office on the grounds of Dnipropetrovsk International Airport. The region possesses major deposits of iron ore and some other metallurgical ores. To exploit them, several large mining companies were founded here in the middle of the 20th century. Most of them are located in Kryvyi Rih itself, which is the longest city in Europe. Steel companies of the region (except Mittal Steel-owned Kryvorizhstal) are controlled by either the Privat Group or the SCM. From the 1990s until 2004, these once united and state-owned industries went through a hard and scandal-ridden process of privatization. Being a business oligarch entity, Privat Group controls some prominent Ukrainian media, maintains close relations with politicians and sponsors professional sports. Key businesses of the group (including the PrivatBank itself) are based in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, which is regarded as its "homeland". Group's founding owners are natives of Dnipropetrovsk and made their entire career there. ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih, owned by

ArcelorMittal ArcelorMittal S.A. is a Luxembourg-based multinational steel manufacturing corporation, headquartered in Luxembourg City. It is ranked second on the list of steel producers behind Baowu, and had an annual crude steel production of 58 millio ...

since 2005 is the largest private company by revenue in Ukraine, producing over 7 million tonnes of crude steel, and mined over 17 million tonnes of iron ore. As of 2011, the company employed about 37,000 people. 4 Iron Ore Enrichment Works of Metinvest are a large contributors to the UA's

balance of payments In international economics, the balance of payments (also known as balance of international payments and abbreviated BOP or BoP) of a country is the difference between all money flowing into the country in a particular period of time (e.g., a ...

. The third giant – Evraz mining company.

Education

Colleges and universities

The oblast has several colleges and universities: # Dnipro State Medical University # Alfred Nobel University # Oles Honchar Dnipro National University # Dnipro Polytechnic # State Chemical Technology University of Ukraine # Dnipro State Technical University of Railway Transport # Prednieper State Academy of Construction and Architecture # Dnipro State University of Internal Affairs # National Metallurgical Academy of Ukraine # Dnipro Medical Institute of Conventional and Alternative Medicine # Dniprovskyi State Technical University # Kryvyi Rih National University # Kryvyi Rih State Pedagogical University # Kryvyi Rih State University of Economics and Technology

Sport

Region houses the

Ukrainian Premier League The Ukrainian Premier League ( ) or UPL is a professional association football league in Ukraine and the highest level of the Ukrainian football league system. Originally known as the Vyshcha Liha ( , ) it was formed in 1991 during the 1992 in ...

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

club, FC Dnipro. This club, commonly seen as representing the

city 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 ...

at large, holds a record for being the only Soviet team to win the USSR Federation Cup twice; since independence they have gone on to win the Ukrainian Championship once and the Ukrainian League Cup three times. Kryvyi Rih was home to the

team Kryvbas Kryvyi Rih. FC Hirnyk Kryvyi Rih is a club based in Kryvyi Rih. The club currently competes in the

Ukrainian First League The Persha Liha ( ) or Ukrainian First League is a Ukrainian football league system, level of national football competitions (second tier) in Ukraine governed by the Professional Football League of Ukraine, Professional Football League at the disc ...

. It is part of the Sports Club Hirnyk which combines several other sections. The club's owner is the Kryvyi Rih Iron Ore Combine (KZRK), the biggest subterranean mining public company in Ukraine. SC Kryvbas is a professional basketball club. Achievements of the team are winning the Ukrainian Basketball League in 2009, and winning the Higher League in 2003 and 2004. Since 2010 the team is active in the Ukrainian Basketball SuperLeague. Recently built Dnipro-Arena has a capacity of 31,003 people. The Dnipro-Arena hosted the

2010 FIFA World Cup The 2010 FIFA World Cup was the 19th FIFA World Cup, the world championship for List of men's national association football teams, men's national Association football, football teams. It took place in South Africa from 11 June to 11 July 2010. ...

qualification game between

and

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

on 10 October 2009. The Dnipro Arena was initially chosen as one of the Ukrainian venues for their joint Euro 2012 bid with Poland. However, it was dropped from the list in May 2009 as the capacity fell short of the minimum 33,000 seats required by

UEFA The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA ; ; ) is one of six continental bodies of governance in association football. It governs football, futsal and beach soccer, beach football in Europe and the List of transcontinental countries#A ...

. Dnipropetrovsk has a regional federation within Ukrainian

bandy Bandy is a winter sport and ball sport played by two team sport, teams wearing Ice skates#Bandy skates, ice skates on a large ice surface (either indoors or outdoors) while using sticks to direct a ball into the opposing team's goal. The playin ...

and

Rink Bandy Rink bandy is a variant of the larger sport of bandy. Unlike bandy which is played on a large bandy field, rink bandy is played on significantly smaller ice hockey-sized ice rinks. While a bandy field is about the same size as a football pi ...

Federation.

Culture

Historically, Dnieper Ukraine comprised territory that roughly corresponded to the area of Ukraine within the expanding

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

. Ukrainians sometimes call it Great Ukraine (Velyka Ukraina). Historically, this region is tightly entwined with the history of Ukraine and is considered the heart of the country. Ukrainian (67,0%) and Russian (31,9%) language are both used, with Russian being more common in cities, while Ukrainian is the dominant language in rural communities. These details result in a significant difference across different survey results, as even a small restating of a question switches responses of a significant group of people. The speaking of Surzhyk instead of Russian or Ukrainian is wide and viewed negatively by nationalist language activists. Because it is neither the one nor the other, they regard Surzhyk as a threat to the uniqueness of

Ukrainian culture The culture of Ukraine is composed of the material and spiritual values of the Ukrainian people that has formed throughout the history of Ukraine. Strong family values and religion, alongside the traditions of Ukrainian embroidery and Ukrainian ...

Petrykivka painting, originating from the village of Petrykivka, is known for its distinctive features such as patterns, unusual technique and white background. It was included to the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

Notable people from Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

Helena Blavatsky Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (; – 8 May 1891), often known as Madame Blavatsky, was a Russian-born Mysticism, mystic and writer who emigrated to the United States where she co-founded the Theosophical Society in 1875. She gained an internat ...

– Russian occultist, philosopher, and author who co-founded the

Theosophical Society The Theosophical Society is the organizational body of Theosophy, an esoteric new religious movement. It was founded in New York City, U.S.A. in 1875. Among its founders were Helena Blavatsky, a Russian mystic and the principal thinker of the ...

Leonid Brezhnev Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev (19 December 190610 November 1982) was a Soviet politician who served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1964 until Death and state funeral of Leonid Brezhnev, his death in 1982 as w ...

– General Secretary of the Central Committee of the

Communist Party of the Soviet Union The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU),. Abbreviated in Russian as КПСС, ''KPSS''. at some points known as the Russian Communist Party (RCP), All-Union Communist Party and Bolshevik Party, and sometimes referred to as the Soviet ...

* Marharyta Dorozhon – Ukrainian/Israeli Olympic

javelin throw The javelin throw is a track and field event where the javelin, a spear about in length, is thrown as far as possible. The javelin thrower gains momentum by running within a predetermined area. Javelin throwing is an event of both the men's de ...

er * Ihor Kolomoyskyi * Tihon Konstantinov –

Moldavian SSR The Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic or Moldavian SSR (, mo-Cyrl, Република Советикэ Сочиалистэ Молдовеняскэ), also known as the Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic, Moldovan SSR, Soviet Moldavia, Sovie ...

and Moldavian ASSR politician *

Leonid Kuchma Leonid Danylovych Kuchma (, ; born 9 August 1938) is a Ukrainian politician who was the second president of Ukraine, serving from 19 July 1994 to 23 January 2005. The only president of Ukraine to serve two terms, his presidency was marked by demo ...

– second President of independent Ukraine *

Yulia Tymoshenko Yulia Volodymyrivna Tymoshenko ( Hrihyan born 27 November 1960) is a Ukrainian politician, who served as Prime Minister of Ukraine in 2005, and again from 2007 until 2010; the first and only woman in Ukraine to hold that position. She has been ...

– politician and businesswoman * Pavlo Lazarenko – former Prime Minister of Ukraine * Viktor Pinchuk * Mykola Malyshko – sculptor and artist * Mikhail Nekrich * Oksana Baiul – figure skater; 1993 World champion and 1994 Olympic champion in ladies' singles * The Lubavitcher Rebbe – Orthodox rabbi, and third Rebbe (spiritual leader) of the Chabad Lubavitch chasidic movement * Samuel Seidlin – endocrinologist and nuclear medicine pioneer * Dmytro Yavornytsky * Valeriy Lobanovskyi * Oleksandr Oksanchenko – fighter pilot killed in the Battle of Kyiv in 2022 *

Oles Honchar Oleksandr "Oles" Terentiiovych Honchar (; []; 3 April 1918 – 14 July 1995) was a Soviet and Ukraine, Ukrainian writer and public figure. He also was a veteran of World War II and member of the Verkhovna Rada, Ukrainian parliament. Biograp ...

* Olexander Paul *

Volodymyr Zelensky 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 ...

– current

* Dnipropetrovsk Maniacs – serial killers

Landmarks

The following historical-cultural sites were nominated to the Seven Wonders of Ukraine. * Tomb of kosh otaman Sirko * Troitsk Cathedral * Church of Virgin Mary Birth * The walls of Ukrainian defensive line * Kurgan stelae or Balbals are

anthropomorphic Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities. It is considered to be an innate tendency of human psychology. Personification is the related attribution of human form and characteristics to ...

stone stelae, images cut from stone, installed atop, within or around

kurgan A kurgan is a type of tumulus (burial mound) constructed over a grave, often characterized by containing a single human body along with grave vessels, weapons, and horses. Originally in use on the Pontic–Caspian steppe, kurgans spread into mu ...

s (i.e.

tumuli A tumulus (: tumuli) is a mound of Soil, earth and Rock (geology), stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds, mounds, howes, or in Siberia and Central Asia as ''kurgans'', and may be found through ...

), in kurgan cemeteries, or in a double line extending from a kurgan. The stelae are also described as "obelisks" or "

statue A statue is a free-standing sculpture in which the realistic, full-length figures of persons or animals are carved or Casting (metalworking), cast in a durable material such as wood, metal or stone. Typical statues are life-sized or close to ...

menhir A menhir (; from Brittonic languages: ''maen'' or ''men'', "stone" and ''hir'' or ''hîr'', "long"), standing stone, orthostat, or lith is a large upright stone, emplaced in the ground by humans, typically dating from the European middle Br ...

s". Spanning more than three millennia, they are clearly the product of various cultures. The earliest are associated with the Pit Grave culture of the

Pontic–Caspian steppe The Pontic–Caspian Steppe is a steppe extending across Eastern Europe to Central Asia, formed by the Caspian and Pontic steppes. It stretches from the northern shores of the Black Sea (the ''Pontus Euxinus'' of antiquity) to the northern a ...

(and therefore with the

Proto-Indo-Europeans The Proto-Indo-Europeans are a hypothetical prehistoric ethnolinguistic group of Eurasia who spoke Proto-Indo-European (PIE), the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Knowledge of them comes chiefly from t ...

according to the mainstream

Kurgan hypothesis The Kurgan hypothesis (also known as the Kurgan theory, Kurgan model, or steppe theory) is the most widely accepted proposal to identify the Proto-Indo-European homeland from which the Indo-European languages spread out throughout Europe and part ...

). There are

Iron Age The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...

specimens are identified with the

Scythians The Scythians ( or ) or Scyths (, but note Scytho- () in composition) and sometimes also referred to as the Pontic Scythians, were an Ancient Iranian peoples, ancient Eastern Iranian languages, Eastern Iranian peoples, Iranian Eurasian noma ...

and

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...

examples with

Turkic peoples Turkic peoples are a collection of diverse ethnic groups of West Asia, West, Central Asia, Central, East Asia, East, and North Asia as well as parts of Europe, who speak Turkic languages.. "Turkic peoples, any of various peoples whose members ...

. Such stelae are found in large numbers in

and Nikolaev. * Kodak fortress was a fort built in 1635 by the order of Polish king

Władysław IV Vasa Władysław IV Vasa or Ladislaus IV (9 June 1595 – 20 May 1648) was King of Poland, Grand Duke of Lithuania and claimant of the thrones of Monarchy of Sweden, Sweden and List of Russian monarchs, Russia. Born into the House of Vasa as a prince ...

and the

Sejm The Sejm (), officially known as the Sejm of the Republic of Poland (), is the lower house of the bicameralism, bicameral parliament of Poland. The Sejm has been the highest governing body of the Third Polish Republic since the Polish People' ...

over the

, near what was to become the town of Stari Kodaky (by modern day:

). It was constructed by Stanisław Koniecpolski to control

Cossack The Cossacks are a predominantly East Slavic Eastern Christian people originating in the Pontic–Caspian steppe of eastern Ukraine and southern Russia. Cossacks played an important role in defending the southern borders of Ukraine and Rus ...

s of Zaporizhian Sich, prevent Ukrainian

peasants A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, raising living organisms for food or raw materials. The term usually applies to people who do some combination of raising f ...

from joining forces with the Cossacks and guard the southeastern corner of the

Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, also referred to as Poland–Lithuania or the First Polish Republic (), was a federation, federative real union between the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland, Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania ...

. The Poles tried to establish order in that area, and commissioned French military cartographer and engineer William le Vasseur de Beauplan to construct it. The fortress cost around 100,000 Polish zlotys. The

dragoon Dragoons were originally a class of mounted infantry, who used horses for mobility, but dismounted to fight on foot. From the early 17th century onward, dragoons were increasingly also employed as conventional cavalry and trained for combat wi ...

garrison was commanded by the French officer Jean de Marion. Soviet government attempted to destroy the remnants of the fortress in order to eradicate traces of Polish influences on Ukraine by setting a quarry on that site in 1944. The quarry was closed in 1994, but at that time two-thirds of the fortress had been destroyed. Today the site is just ruins, but it is a popular tourist attraction. * The Saviour's Transfiguration Cathedral (Ukrainian: Спасо-Преображенський кафедральний собор) is the main Orthodox church of Dnipro, Ukraine. The foundation stone was laid in 1786 by

Catherine II Catherine II. (born Princess Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst; 2 May 172917 November 1796), most commonly known as Catherine the Great, was the reigning empress of Russia from 1762 to 1796. She came to power after overthrowing her husband, Peter III ...

of Russia and Emperor Joseph II. The event is described in the memoirs of comte de Ségur. Prince

Grigory Potemkin Prince Grigory Aleksandrovich Potemkin-Tauricheski (A number of dates as late as 1742 have been found on record; the veracity of any one is unlikely to be proved. This is his "official" birth-date as given on his tombstone.) was a Russian mi ...

envisioned the church as one of the spiritual centres of New Russia.

Ivan Starov Ivan Yegorovich Starov (; 23 February 1745 – 17 April 1808) was a Russian architect from Saint Petersburg, St. Petersburg who devised the master plans for Yaroslavl, Voronezh, Pskov, Dnipro, Mykolaiv, and many other towns in Russia and Ukr ...

submitted to Potemkin his designs for a Roman-style basilica, but construction was postponed until the end of the Russo-Turkish War.

Symbols

A Cossack with a musket was an emblem of the Zaporizhian Host and later the state emblem of the Hetmanate and the

Ukrainian State The Ukrainian State (), sometimes also called the Second Cossack Hetmanate, Hetmanate (), was an Anti-communism, anti-Bolshevik government that existed on most of the modern territory of Ukraine (except for Western Ukraine) from 29 April to 14 ...

. The origin of the emblem is uncertain, while its first records date back to 1592. On the initiative of

Pyotr Rumyantsev Count Pyotr Alexandrovich Rumyantsev-Zadunaisky (; – ) was one of the foremost Russian generals of the 18th century, and is widely considered to be one of Russia's greatest military leaders, and one of the greatest military commanders in ...

the emblem was phased out and replaced by the Russian double-headed eagle in 1767. A Cossack with a rifle was restored by the Hetman of Ukraine Pavlo Skoropadsky in 1918. However, later the emblem disappeared again until in 2005 it reappeared on the proposed Great Seal of Ukraine. In 2002 was adopted flag and identical coat of arms of Oblast, which consists of cossack with musket and nine yellow eight-pointed stars. Stars represent coat of arms of

which also consisted of imperial monogram of

Catherine the Great Catherine II. (born Princess Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst; 2 May 172917 November 1796), most commonly known as Catherine the Great, was the reigning empress of Russia from 1762 to 1796. She came to power after overthrowing her husband, Peter I ...

. The official plants are

wheat Wheat is a group of wild and crop domestication, domesticated Poaceae, grasses of the genus ''Triticum'' (). They are Agriculture, cultivated for their cereal grains, which are staple foods around the world. Well-known Taxonomy of wheat, whe ...

, acanthus and

oak An oak is a hardwood tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' of the beech family. They have spirally arranged leaves, often with lobed edges, and a nut called an acorn, borne within a cup. The genus is widely distributed in the Northern Hemisp ...

. The motto of the oblast is

Per aspera ad astra is a Latin language, Latin phrase meaning "to the stars". The phrase has origins with Virgil, who wrote in his ''Aeneid'': "''sic itur ad astra''" ('thus one journeys to the stars') and "''opta ardua pennis astra sequi''" ('desire to pursue t ...

Gallery

Palast der Kultur in Schowti Wody Haupteingang.JPG, Palace of Culture in Zhovti Vody File:Одиноке дерево.JPG, Family allotments File:Dnipropetrovsk - Aug 2013 - 005.jpg, Dnieper river File:Мine in Kryvyi Rih.JPG, Pokrovska mine in Kryvyi Rih File:Будівля Дніпропетровської обладміністрації.JPG, Dnipropetrovsk Regional State Administration

References

External links

*
Official site of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Administration

Information Card of the Region

Cabinet of Ministers 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 ...

{{Authority control Oblasts of Ukraine States and territories established in 1946 Soviet toponymy in Ukraine 1946 establishments in Ukraine

Geography

Geology

History

Administrative subdivisions

Demographics

Age structure

Median age

Religion

Cities and towns

Transport

Environment

Economy

Education

Colleges and universities

Sport

Culture

Notable people from Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

Landmarks

Symbols

Gallery

See also

References

External links