Zaporizhia Region

Zaporizhzhia Oblast is an oblast (province) of southern Ukraine. Its capital is Zaporizhzhia. The oblast covers an area of 27,183 sq.kms, and its population was 1,785,243 (2013 est.) at a January 2013.

This oblast is an important part of Ukraine's industry and agriculture.

Geography

The area of the province is 27,183 km²; its population (estimated as at 1 January 2013) was 1,785,243.

Important cities include:

• Berdyansk
• Enerhodar – home of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant
• Melitopol
• Zaporizhzhia

History

The Zaporizhzhia Oblast was created as part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic on 10 January 1939 out of the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. During the 1991 referendum, 90.66% of votes in the oblast were in favor of the Declaration of Independence of Ukraine. The SBU thwarted an attempt to blow up a railway line in the Zaporizhzhia Oblast, and found that the suspects were carrying maps and explosives on 8 July 2014. A survey conducted in December 2014 by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology found 2.1% of the oblast's population supported their region joining Russia, 80.7% did not support the idea, and the rest were undecided or did not respond.

Points of interest

The following sites were nominated for the Seven Wonders of Ukraine.

• Kamyana Mohyla, prehistoric "Stone Tomb" site (museum-preserve)
• Khortytsia
• Dniprostroy