Administrative divisions of Ukraine

Administrative divisions of Ukraine
First level
Regions — Oblast — Autonomous Republic — Cities with special status
Second level
Districts — Raion — City Raion — Regional City
Third level
Local Settlements — District City — Town — Village — Settlement

Ukraine is subdivided into 27 regions: 24 oblasts, one autonomous republic, and two "cities with special status".

The administrative division in Ukraine was directly inherited from the local republican administration of the Soviet Union, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, and has not changed majorly since the middle of 20th century. It is somewhat complex as beside having couple of levels of a territorial subdivision, it also has its own classification for various settlements.

Regions, cities, districts are governed by a state administration, a chief of which is appointed by the president. Crimea has its own incomplete cabinet of ministers, however the state administration is represented by the office of the Presidential Representative of Ukraine. A basic and the lowest level of administrative division is a settlement that is governed by a local council (rada). Cities as a settlement always carry a special status within a region and have their own form of self-administration (municipality - vykonkom) and some may consist of their own city's districts (raions). City municipalities are governed by a mayor.

For an understanding of the cultural and socioeconomic differences within the country, a knowledge of the Ukrainian historical regions is crucial in studying the administrative structure. For example the West Ukraine has some influence of the countries from Central Europe, while the East Ukraine is heavily influenced by the Russian Federation.

History

Main articles: Administrative divisions development in Ukraine and Ukrainian historical regions

The system of Ukrainian subdivisions reflects country's status as a unitary state with unified legal and administrative regimes for each unit. In the post-World War II period, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic consisted of 25 oblast's and two cities with a special status. Before the administrative subdivision of Ukraine was subdivided into oblasts, the Ukrainian SSR was divided into 40 okrugs, which replaced the former Russian Imperial guberniya subdivision.

In 1932, the territory of the Ukrainian SSR was re-established based on oblasts. Excluded in the administrative changes was Western Ukraine, which was then part of the Second Polish Republic and was subject to their form of administrative division based on voivodeships. Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Crimea has obtained the status of an autonomous republic with its own government instead of a regional state administration. Each region of Ukraine has at least one city of oblast subordinance, which is always the region's administrative center. Also, each region is divided into many raions (districts) and may contain additional "city raions."

Structure

Volyn

Rivne

Zhytomyr

Kiev

Khmel.

Ternopil

I.F.

Zakarpattia

Chernivtsi

Vinnytsia

Cherkasy

Kirovohrad

Mykolaiv

Poltava

Chernihiv

Sumy

Kharkiv

Dnipropetrovsk

Odessa

Kherson

Zaporizhia

Donetsk

A.R.
Crimea

Luhansk

Azov Sea

Black Sea

Russia

Belarus

Poland

Romania

Moldova

Lviv

•

•

Dnieper

There are three major administrative subdivisions: oblast (region), raion (district), and settlements: city, urban and rural settlements. The following table is based on the 2001 Ukrainian Census.

Degree of division	Territory	Number	Cities and other settlements	Number	Total settlements
1 (regions)	autonomous republic	1	-	-	-
	oblast	24	cities with special status	2	459
2 (districts)	raion	490	region level city	178
	-	-	city district	118
3 (settlements)	-	-	district level city	279
	municipality, town	783	other town	102	885
	municipality, rural	10278	village	27190	28456
	-	-	rural settlement	1266

Regions

Autonomous republic

The Autonomous Republic of Crimea, formerly the Crimean Oblast of the Ukrainian SSR, is geographically the main part of Crimean peninsula in the south of Ukraine. Its capital is Simferopol.

Oblasts

Oblasts are the major and the most common administrative division in the country and often interchangeably is being used with another term of regions. Almost each oblast is named after its administrative center, while the one, that does not, are named after its historical region.

Cities with special status

There are two cities that carry a special status. First it is the city of Kiev which is the capital and another one is the city of Sevastopol that carries exclusive rights that Ukraine handed over to Russia (Black Sea Fleet) in spite of the Constitution of Ukraine.

Districts

Main article: Raions of Ukraine

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 (463 sq mi), an average population of raions is 52,000 people.

Settlements

The Dnieper River plays an important part in Ukrainian territorial division, with many large cities settled on its banks; here, the Kiev River Port and the residential Obolon high-rises can be seen.

Status		Status (in Ukrainian)	Total Number (as of 2006)
misto / city		місто	457
	municipality	місто зі спеціальним статусом	2
	misto оblastnoho znachennia	місто областного значення	176
	misto raionnoho znachennia	місто районного значення	279
selyshche miskoho typu / town		селище міського типу	886
selo / village		сільський населений пункт	28,552
	selysche	селище	1,364
	selo	село	27,188

There are two types of settlements: rural and urban. Rural populated areas (сільський населений пункт) can be either a village (село, selo) or a rural settlement (селище). Urban populated areas (міський населений пункт) can be either a city (містo) or an urbanized settlement (селище міського типу). Urbanized settlements for a brevity sake often are classified as towns in the English language.

The changes to a settlement status can be done only by the Verkhovna Rada. Please, note that the size of a settlement does not ultimately define its status although is a major factor. For example, the city of Prypiat in Ukraine still retains its status, while having a population of zero (0) residents due to its infrastructure: buildings, roads, utility networks, etc.

The typical Ukrainian misto ought to be considered a city, not a town (compare to City status in the United Kingdom). However, the city's subordination to either oblast or raion also should be taken into account, especially in the political sense. Some of urbanized settlements may be cities of raion subordination, although it could seem confusing, a type of settlement should be considered first as its status is given for administrative purposes.

Cities

Drohobych, is a city of oblast subordinance, subordinate to the Lviv Oblast authorities rather than to the local Drohobych Raion administration.

Cities may carry various status, some may be of national importance, another - of regional (oblast) importance, and the rest - of a district (raion) importance. For example, the cities of Kiev and of Sevastopol have the special status of a national importance (significance) and each is officially classified as a city with a special status, which administratively is equivalent to an oblast (region). Mayors of those cities, in general, as governors of oblasts are being appointed by the President of Ukraine. However, the status of the Mayor of Kiev city, in particular, is somewhat more complex, and for further information see Legal status and local government of Kiev. The status of the Sevastopol city is also unique.

At the oblast level almost each have at least one city of regional subordination (importance) which is the administrative center (capital) of that oblast. However, some other big cities within the oblast may have such status as well. The cities of oblast subordination have the same importance of a whole raion and often are the administrative centers of such. Note that beside the regular raions there are several cities in Ukraine usually of national (mentioned earlier) or oblast status that are subdivided into several city raions of their own. Those raions may sometimes include other cities, towns, and/or villages. In 2010 there were 23 such cities that have city raions.

Kiev Oblast for instance, has a couple of "city raions," one of which is Pereiaslav-Khmelnytskyi. Although housing the surrounding raion's administration, the city is no longer subordinate to it.

A lot of raions also have city municipalities of its level of subordination (importance). Those are usually the administrative centers (capitals). Notice that not all raions (districts) have a city as their administrative center, however all the raion (district) centers are at least urban-like (urbanized). All administrative centers have their own form of self-administration. The municipalities of a raion subordination may administer several other adjacent to them local councils (municipalities), usually rural. If raion has several cities of raion (district) level, they may share an administrative power for the raion.

Other municipalities

As it was mentioned above, beside city municipalities there are urban-like municipalities. The lowest form of self-administration are rural municipalities and villages. A rural municipality may consist of a single village, usually big, or combination of other rural villages or localities. Note that some villages also have some additional very small settlements. Those settlements together with the home village combine a local (rural) municipality (silrada). For simplicity sake, silrada (rural municipality) is usually referred to as a village and is the lowest level of administrative division. The status to any settlement is granted through the Verkhovna Rada.

Other administrations

There are also some former military installation-settlements (viiskove mistechko). Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the secrecy of such settlements was "unveiled", however, those towns being subordinated directly to the Ministry of Defense and do not have their own civil administration. Such military installations are like ghost towns that are not even identified on a map. One of them is on the border of the Kiev and Zhytomyr Oblasts called Makarov-1. Also there is a special territory which is under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Emergencies. It is the territory which suffered the most from the Chernobyl disaster, known as the Zone of alienation. Some restricted territories belong to the Ministry of Ecology (former Nature Environment) and are considered nature sanctuaries (preserves).

A mix of modern and old buildings in Dnipropetrovsk, located in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. Dnipropetrovsk's metropolitan area includes cities such as Dniprodzerzhynsk and Novomoskovsk.

Currently there are three enclaves. The city of Slavutych is administratively subordinated directly to Kiev Oblast, while being completely surrounded by neighboring Belarus and Chernihiv Oblast. Another enclave is a settlement Bile which is located on the Snake island and is fully surrounded by the Black Sea. Bile was established in 2007 and is part of the Vylkove city of Odessa Oblast. Also a town of Kotsiubynske (Irpin municipality) which is part of the Kiev Oblast is completely surrounded by the city of Kiev.

Other nomenclatures for local settlements that are now abandoned include khutir, workers' settlement etc.

Metropolitan areas

Ukraine has five major agglomerated metropolitan areas (conurbations). These conurbation areas are not officially recognized and remain to be administered according to official oblast-raion system of subdivision.

• Kiev 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

Nomenclature

Names of Ukraine's administrative units

Ukrainian	Romanized¹	English widespread	English recommended (formal use)	English recommended (informal use)
автономна республіка	avtonomna respublika	(autonomous) republic	autonomous republic	autonomy
область	oblast'	region², province	oblast	province
район	raion	district, region³, area, county	raion	district
містo	misto	city, municipality	misto	city, municipality5
містo зі спеціальним статусом	misto zi spetsial'nym statusom	special-status municipality, special-charter municipality4	municipality	municipality, city
містo обласного значення	misto оblastnoho znachennia	city of oblast subordinance	misto оblastnoho znachennia	city of oblast subordinance
містo районного значення	misto raionnoho znachennia	city of raion subordinance	misto raionnoho znachennia	city of raion subordinance
селище міського типу	selysche mis'koho typu	town, urban-type settlement	selysche mis'koho typu	town, urban-type settlement
сільський населений пункт	sil'skyi naselenyi punkt	village, rural-type settlement	selo	village, rural-type settlement
селище	selysche	village	selysche	village
село	selo	village	selo	village

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.
4. Also may be referred as republican status.
5. City refers exclusively to the city administration (usually smaller cities), while some cities include other urban and rural administrations such collective administrations form city councils - municipalities.

See also

• Geography of Ukraine
• ISO 3166-2:UA

External links

• "Regions of Ukraine and their composition" (in Ukrainian). Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. http://w1.c1.rada.gov.ua/pls/z7502/a002. Retrieved 25 December 2011. 
• "Ukraine Raions". Statoids. http://www.statoids.com/yua.html. Retrieved 8 February 2012. 
• "Ukrainian cities and regions in alphabetical order" (in English). UkraineTrek. http://ukrainetrek.com/regions-by-alphabet. Retrieved 10 February 2012.