Dnepropetrovsk Oblast

Dnipropetrovsk Oblast ( uk, Дніпропетро́вська о́бласть, translit=Dnipropetrovska oblast), also referred to as Dnipropetrovshchyna ( uk, Дніпропетро́вщина), is an oblast (province) of central-eastern Ukraine, 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 centers: Dnipro, Kryvyi Rih, Kamianske, Nikopol and Pavlohrad. The Dnieper River runs through the oblast.

In 2019, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine approved the change of the oblast's name to Sicheslav Oblast ( uk, Січесла́вська о́бласть, translit=Sicheslavska oblast).

Geography

The Dnipropetrovsk Oblast is located in southeastern Ukraine. 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 and Kharkiv Oblasts on the north, the Donetsk Oblast on the east, the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson Oblasts on the south, and the Mykolayiv and Kirovohrad Oblasts on the west.

The Black Sea Lowland covers about half of the territory of the oblast. In Ternivka, a meteorite crater is located. It is in diameter and it’s age is estimated at 280 ± 10 million years (Permian). The crater is not exposed at the surface. The Dnieper Upland contains a number of minerals including iron, manganese, granite, graphite, brown coal, and kaolin. 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. Named after the city of Kryvyi Rih, the region occupies the southwestern part of the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, as well as a small neighboring part of the Kirovohrad Oblast.

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.

Geology

Much of the Dnipropetrovsk region 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 Paleozoic, the Mesozoic and the Cenozoic.

History

In the 6th and 8th centuries, the first settlements of Slavs appeared on the banks of the Dnieper within the region. During the period of Kievan Rus' (9-12 centuries AD) the Dnieper River was one of the main trade routes of medieval Eastern Europe called "From the Varangians to the Greeks", which connected the Baltic countries with the Crimea and the capital of Byzantium, Constantinople. The Dnieper also served as a major route for transporting the army 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