Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe whose capital is Kyiv (formerly Kiev).
Identification
Country name: UKRAINE (also known as UKRAINA, formerly known as the Ukrainian S.S.R.)
Telephone dialing code: +380
Internet country code: .ua
Name etymology: The Old Slavic root word "krai" is a homonym for both the word "border" and for the word "land", hence the name "Ukraina" is often described as meaning "borderland".
Name usage: Formerly the definite article was used with the country name ("the Ukraine") but the more modern usage is to simply use "Ukraine". Also the name of the capital city is now spelled "Kyiv" rather than "Kiev".
National flag: Blue horizontal stripe above a yellow horizontal stripe, symbolizing blue sky above golden grain.
National emblem: Trident ("tryzub")
Geography
Location: Eastern Europe, north of the Black Sea and northwest of the Sea of Azov.
Map coordinates: Centered on 49 00 N, 32 00 E
Capital city: Kyiv (formerly spelled "Kiev")
Time zone: UTC+2
Land area: 603,700 square kilometers (233,080 square miles)
Coastline: 2,800 kilometers (1750 miles)
Neighboring countries: Russia, Poland, Belarus, Hungary, Romania, Moldova, and Slovakia
Physical geography: Consists of mostly flat but fertile plain (called "steppe") and also plateaus, with some forests in the north and some mountains in the south.
Climate: Temperate continental, plus mediterranean in the south
Rivers: Dnipro (Dnieper), Donets, Dniester, Buh
Mountains: Carpathian Mountains (2000 meters or 6000 feet high), plus Crimean Mountains in southern Crimea peninsula.
Major cities: Kyiv (capital), Lviv, Odessa, Sevastopol (Russian naval port), and Dnipropetrovsk
Demographics
Population: 47 million (47,000,000)
Population density: 80 per square kilometer (200 per square mile)
Languages: Ukrainian (70%), Russian (20%), plus 10% miscellaneous, such as Crimean Tartar and also Surzhyk in the southeast (a blend of Russian vocabulary with Ukrainian grammar and pronounciation)
Religion: Predominately Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Culture: Ukraine is widely known for its lively cossack-style dancing ("hopak") and elaborately batiked easter eggs ("pysanky")
Literature: Nikolai Gogol, Taras Shevchenko, Ivan Franko, Lesia Ukrainka
Economics
Economic classification: Lower middle-income nation, post-soviet developing economy
GDP: $103 billion ($103,000,000,000)
GDP growth: 6% fairly consistently
GDP per capita: $2,200
Purchasing power per capita: $7,700
Foreign debt: 7% of GDP
Foreign investment: 2% of GDP
Currency: Hryvnia (worth about 20 cents, in $USD), introduced 1996 to stabilize runaway inflation (trading at 5:1 for United States dollars, and at 6:1 for European Union euros)
Average monthly salary: 200 euros per month
Tax structure:
- Personal income tax is 15%
- Corporate income tax is 25%
- Value-added tax (VAT) is 20%
- Social insurance tax is 30%
Commercial prime lending rate: 15%
Inflation: 10% and falling
Import/export goods:
- Metals (35%)
- Machinery (25%)
- Fuel & chemicals (10%)
- Agricultural (10%)
- Other (20%)
Mining: Fuel ores include coal, oil, and natural gas, and metal ores include iron, manganese, titanium, magnesium, nickel, and mercury.
Major trade partners: Russia (25%), then about 5% each for Germany, Poland, Italy, Turkey, and China, and then others.
Politics
Government: Democratic Republic with a 450-member legislature, the "Verkhovna Rada" (Supreme Council), plus an executive branch with Viktor Yushchenko as president and Viktor Yanukovych as prime minister, plus a Supreme Court and a Constitutional Court.
Political parties: Many coalitions and blocks, including Rukh, Yulia Tymoshenko block, Socialists under Oleksandr Moroz, plus some old-time communists and also Russian separatists
Military: Ukraine is now nuclear-weapon-free (as of 1996) per the 1992 START and 1994 NNP Treaties, and has reduced its army from one million soldiers after the fall of the Soviet Union to around 300,000 soldiers.
Alliances: Ukraine is neutral, but has some limited military links to both NATO and CIS countries.
Current issues:
- Parliament recently disbanded by the president and new elections will likely be required.
- Russia uses its energy imports in attempts to control Ukrainian politics and economics
- A strong (20%) Russian minority (mostly in the south and east) is campaigning for partition
- Legal and ecomomic systems are still controlled by oligarchs, often secretive
Regions
Subdivisions: Ukraine is divided into 24 provinces ("oblasti") plus the autonomous republic of Crimea. The 24 provinces are further subdivided into 494 districts ("raions"). The province ("oblast") names are:
- Cherkasy
- Chrenihiv
- Chernivtsi
- Crimea (republic)
- Dnipropetrovsk
- Donetsk
- Ivano-Frankivsk
- Kharkiv
- Kherson
- Khmelnytski
- Krovohrad
- Kiev
- Luhansk
- Lviv
- Mykolaiv
- Odessa
- Poltava
- Rivne
- Sumy
- Ternopil
- Vinnytsia
- Volyn
- Zakarpattia
- Zaporizhia
- Zhytomyr
History
Prehistory: Neolithic Trypillian culture existed between 4500 BCE and 3000 BCE
Tribal history: Scythian, Goth, Bulgar, and Khazar tribes existed between 700 BCE and 700 CE
Ancient history: Kyiv grows into an extensive Slavic state (Kievan Rus') between 800 and 1100 CE
Medieval history: Ukraine is part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth between 1300 and 1600 CE
Cossack history: A Cossack ("kozak") state was established by various rebellions between 1600 to 1800 CE, but was eventually absorbed by the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires
Soviet history: Ukraine was part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) between 1922 to 1991
Modern history: After the fall of the Soviet Union, Ukraine achieved full independence in 1991, and the mostly non-violent "Orange Revolution" street protests of 2004 (after a controversial presidential election) brought in the current reformist government under Viktor Yushchenko.
Websites
Useful links include:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/up.html