Ukraine

Ukraine is a big country in Europe.

Most of it is flat land. The soil is dark and good for growing food. The Black Sea is in the south. The capital city is called Kyiv.

Ukraine is in eastern Europe. It covers about 603,500 square kilometers, which makes it a big country, and almost all of it is level plain. Mountains are found only at its edges: the Carpathians in the far west and the Crimean Mountains in the south.

The Black Sea and the Sea of Azov lie along its southern coast. Its capital, Kyiv, stands on the Dnieper, the longest river in the country. Ukrainian is the official language.

Ukraine occupies the southwestern portion of the East European (Russian) Plain. Its area is about 603,500 square kilometers, and it consists almost entirely of level plains at an average elevation of about 175 m; the Ukrainian Carpathians and the Crimean Mountains, on the borders, account for barely 5 percent of the area. Britannica put the urban share at 69.7 percent in 2022.

Population estimates differ widely: the World Bank estimated 39.0 million for 2025, while Britannica's 2026 estimate is 42.5 million. Ukraine declared independence from the Soviet Union on August 24, 1991, confirmed by a referendum on December 1, 1991, and Kyiv, the capital, was the center of the Kyivan state, which began to form in the mid-9th century.

Kyiv is the biggest city in Ukraine.

It is on a wide river. Kyiv has a very old church with green and gold domes. Lviv is a city in the west with colorful old houses.

Kyiv, the capital, lies on the Dnieper River. More than 1,000 years ago it was the center of a state called Kyivan Rus. Saint Sophia Cathedral, a place of worship whose story begins in the 1000s, is one of its most famous buildings.

Lviv, in the west, was founded in the Middle Ages and was an important center of trade for hundreds of years. Its medieval street plan has survived almost unchanged, with signs of the many different communities who lived there. Other large cities include Kharkiv and Dnipro.

Kyiv, the capital, had about 2.95 million people in 2022 (Wikidata). UNESCO inscribed its Saint-Sophia Cathedral and the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra in 1990: the cathedral was designed to rival Hagia Sophia in Constantinople when Kyiv was the capital of an 11th-century Christian principality, and the Lavra helped spread Orthodox thought from the 17th to the 19th century.

Lviv, founded in the late Middle Ages, was for centuries an administrative, religious and commercial center; UNESCO (1998) notes that its medieval street plan survives virtually intact, with evidence of the different ethnic communities who lived there and many fine Baroque and later buildings. Kharkiv (1.42 million in 2022) and Dnipro (about 969,000) are other large cities. Both World Heritage sites have been on UNESCO's List of World Heritage in Danger since 2023.

Most of Ukraine is wide, flat land.

The soil is dark black and very good for farming. Long rivers flow to the sea. In the west there are green mountains with forests.

About two-thirds of Ukraine is covered by chernozem, which means black earth. It is dark, rich soil, among the most fertile in the world, and it is very good for growing crops. From north to south, Ukraine changes from woods and marshes to forest-steppe to steppe, a dry grassland.

The Dnieper River flows across the middle of the country to the Black Sea. In the far west, the Carpathian Mountains hold most of Ukraine's forests and its highest peak, Hoverla, 2,061 meters tall. Winters are colder in the east, and summers can be hot.

Britannica divides Ukraine's soils into three belts: sandy podzolized soils in the north and northwest (about one-fifth of the area), the black chernozems of the center (about two-thirds), and chestnut soils that become saline toward the Black Sea. The deep chernozems of the north are about 1.5 m thick and rich in humus, but intensive cultivation has caused widespread erosion. Natural vegetation zones run from the Polissya woodland and marsh through the forest-steppe to the steppe, whose fescue and feather grasses survive in reserves.

The Dnieper runs 980 km within Ukraine and drains more than half of it; almost all major rivers flow southeast to the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. The Carpathians stretch more than 240 km in the far west and peak at Hoverla (2,061 m). The climate is temperate: January averages range from about −3 °C in the southwest to −8 °C in the northeast, and the Carpathians receive more than 1,200 mm of precipitation a year against less than 400 mm on the Black Sea lowlands.