Populated places in Ukraine

In Ukraine, a populated place (Ukrainian: Населений пункт, romanized: Naselenyi punkt) refers to a structured component of the human settlement system, representing a stationary community within a territorially cohesive and compact area characterized by a significant concentration of population.^[1] Its defining attribute is the continuous presence of human inhabitants. Populated places in Ukraine are classified into two primary categories: urban and rural.^[2] Urban populated places are cities, whereas rural areas include villages and rural settlements (known as selyshcha). According to data from the 2001 Ukrainian Census, there are 1,344 urban and 28,621 rural populated places in Ukraine.

All populated places are governed by their municipality (hromada), may it be a village, a city or any settlement hromada. A municipality may consist of one or several populated places and is (except Kyiv and Sevastopol) a constituent part of a raion (district) which in turn is constituents of an oblast (province).

Beside regular populated places in Ukraine that are part of administrative division and population census, there are several additional categories for populated places that are used for other purposes. Among such categories are mountainous populated places, historic populated places, and others.

The 2015 law on decommunization required populated places and toponymy related to Ukraine's past in the Soviet Union to be renamed.^[3] Leading to a string of new Ukrainian toponyms. On 21 March 2023, about a year following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine an subsequent occupation of parts of Ukraine by Russia, the Ukrainian parliament adopted the law "On the Condemnation and Prohibition of Propaganda of Russian Imperial Policy in Ukraine and the Decolonization of Toponymy", which is set to change the names of places associated with Russian imperialism.^[4] In the law's explanatory note was stated this was "a ban on assigning geographic objects names that glorify, perpetuate, promote, or symbolize the occupying state."^[5]

Cities

City with special status is treated as a city-region. Most cities in Ukraine are the centres of the corresponding municipality (hromada). Only 8 cities (Stebnyk, Sosnivka, Uhniv, Ukrainsk, Bilytske, Rodynske and Hirnyk, Donetsk Oblast) are not centres of the municipality. Two cities (Chernobyl and Pripyat) are abandoned and are governed by the State Agency of Ukraine on the Exclusion Zone Management.

City status a populated place receives on a decision of the Supreme Council of Ukraine - Verkhovna Rada.

Cities that have population of less than 50,000 are considered to be small cities and fall under a special state program in development of small cities.^[6]

According to the 2001 Ukrainian Census there are 454 cities in Ukraine, among which two with special status (Kyiv and Sevastopol).

Rural populated places

Rural populated places (Ukrainian: сільські населені пункти) or rural localities^[7] can refer to two different types of inhabited places: villages and rural settlements.

Rural settlements

The term selyshche (селище, "settlement") used to have a double meaning in the administrative-territorial system of Ukraine. It was used either for urban-type settlements or for some smaller populated places which are often part of a rural hromada. Unlike other nomenclatures for populated places, in the Constitution of Ukraine a term like urban-type settlement was not defined and was part of the Soviet legislature that was conditionally grandfathered. In 2023 a law was passed to finally eliminate any deviations or variations of the term selyshche clearly categorizing them as rural type of populated place along with villages. The law also merged the two categories that de facto existed in Ukraine.

According to the 2023 law "About the order to solve separate issues of the administrative and territorial system of Ukraine", a selyshche is identified as a populated place with predominantly a private housing total population of which is no less than 5,000 people.^[8]

According to the 2001 Ukrainian Census there are 1,266 rural settlements in Ukraine (excluding urban-type settlements, which still existed at the time).

Villages

Village as a term became systematic for a conventional rural populated place and most numerous out of all terms used for populated places in a country. A rural hromada may be composed of a single village or group of villages. According to the 2001 Ukrainian Census there were 27,190 villages in Ukraine that were organized into 10,278 rural (village) councils.

According to the 2023 law "About the order to solve separate issues of the administrative and territorial system of Ukraine", a village identified as a populated place with predominantly a private housing total population of which is less than 5,000 people.

Other populated places

In 1995 there was created a special category for mountainous populated places in Ukraine. Mountainous status is received by populated places located in mountainous area, have inadequately developed sphere of employment and social services as well as a limited transportation access (low development density of infrastructure or infrastructure is weak).

Historic types of populated places

Among historic types of populated places in Ukraine are places like khutir, prysilok, zymivnyk, mistechko, sloboda, horod. Collective and/or soviet farms used to be based either on an individual settlement (village) or include several neighboring rural settlements (villages, khutirs, slobodas).

Ukrainian khutirs were destroyed in 1930s-1940s during the Soviet occupation as part of the fight with individual farming (dekulakization campaign).^[9]

Urban-type settlements in Ukraine were a type of populated place in Ukraine from 1925 until 2024, deriving from a Soviet invented term for a populated place with some degree of urbanization or in proximity to an urbanized area. In the Constitution of Ukraine urban settlement is mentioned simply as selysche (a settlement), which also adds another ambiguity to the administrative territorial system of Ukraine. The term selysche is also used to some smaller populated places, while can be found within other administrative territorial subdivisions. Those settlements implicitly known as rural settlements, while often presented simply as selysches. According to the 2001 Ukrainian Census there were 890 urban settlements in Ukraine. The designation was abolished in late January 2024 as part of the decommunization of Ukraine's settlement classification system.